Stars in Mind
by hunterofartemis080
Summary: Adelaide sacrificed herself to save the Doctor from death at Lake Silencio and found herself regenerated in turn. Losing the Ponds and gaining their new companion provide fresh challenges and new insights, but there's something leering at them from the dark, drawing them closer than ever. Fifth in the Crossed Stars. Time Lady - 11/OC
1. Memories

**Memories**

"Hello, Ponds!" the Doctor cheered, having connected with the human couple while Adelaide wasn't in the console...otherwise he soundly wouldn't have been allowed anywhere near the phone. "Checking in. How are you? Not much to report. Surfed the fire falls of Florinall Nine. Not deliberately, just the easiest way out. Adelaide's idea, so it was brilliant. Met Mata Hari in a Paris hotel room. What an interesting woman. Thankfully, Adelaide wasn't there...laid down some backing vocals." He spun around the TARDIS, working on piloting it. "We should be with you any day now. Literally any day. Helmic regulator's playing up. Can't get the temporal steering right." An alarm, quite a worrying one, went off. "Oh dear, I appear to have collided with ancient Greece. Argh!"

"Doctor!" Adelaide shouted from one of the corridors, making the Doctor wince.

He desperately hoped she still liked strawberries, because he needed something to distract her from the fact he just slammed into a classical civilization.

|C-S|

The Doctor burst into Amy and Rory's bedroom with his hands over his eyes. "Argh! Stop everything."

Both humans sat up. "What's going on?" Rory asked.

"Doctor! Bedroom!"

"We have a rule about the bedroom."

Adelaide appeared in the doorway behind him, dragging the Doctor back by his shoulder. "Out, now!"

"No one on this planet is safe right now!" he tried to pull himself from her grip. "We have to solve this before it's too late." He glanced towards Rory and Amy but quickly looked away again. "Get your clothes on. If we move fast we at least stand a chance and...you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"

The humans shook their heads in unison. "No."

"We're too early, Doctor," Adelaide hissed. "Helmic regulator is still broken."

The Doctor nodded, pointing at them. "Wrong point. As you were."

Adelaide pulled him from the room and back to the TARDIS. "Doctor, Adelaide, you can't just go like that," Amy called after them. "What's happening? Don't we need to know?"

The Time Lady reappeared in the doorway. "Wrong order. Easy mistake for the Doctor to make. Nothing to alarm you."

The Doctor came around her side. "Forget we were ever here. We'll be back soon enough, I would have thought. Everything's fine...pretty much." He glanced at Adelaide. "Don't worry about the future. The future is really..."

"Safe," Adelaide cut in.

"Sleep well." They both left again and the humans just sighed.

|C-S|

That time, Adelaide was with the Doctor when he called back the Ponds, as she'd been the one to receive the message about them having an Ood in their home in the first place. The Time Lord was busy messing with the wires under the console, with Adelaide standing beside him holding out the phone, arms crossed. "Ood," he said, nodding. "Yes, I was wondering where he'd got to. I thought he'd just gone for a walk in the TARDIS. Must have wandered off when we popped in the other night." He paused. "If it was the other night."

"This is why you tell me when there's an Ood in the TARDIS," Adelaide told him.

He made a face. "You know, I rescued him from the middle of the Androvax conflict. I was taking him back to the Ood Sphere."

"And you decided to stop off at the Ponds on the way?"

"I got distracted!"

Adelaide sighed. "He's conditioned to serve. The best thing is to just let him do that. I'll make sure the Doctor comes to pick him up tonight."

There was a sound that had the both Time Lords' eyes widening. "Power drain's threatening to cause the TARDIS to implode. Oh no, that's bad!"

|C-S|

Adelaide leaned against the TARDIS as the Doctor worked to change the bulb on top of the TARDIS, fighting a bit of a wind storm. "Us again. Apologizes for the gaps in communications. The Doctor dropped your Ood back home and reconnected it to the hive mind."

"Helmic regulator's still not working," the Doctor added. "Got hit by an arrow in Hastings Hill."

"Rode horses through eleventh century Coventry."

"Also," the Doctor grinned, starting down his ladder, "I think I may have accidentally invented pasta. Adelaide doesn't believe so, but..." the Time Lady gave him a look. "We popped round but you were out."

"Which is fine."

The Doctor nodded. "Everything's alright, isn't it, with you two?" He shook his head. "Course it is. Ponds always fine. Just worrying unnecessarily. Anyway, just call us if you need us. Okay? Toodle pip."

Adelaide hung up the phone but didn't have a chance to put it away before the Doctor took out his sonic and deleted the message.

She knew why.

|C-S|

The Time Lords entered the room with care, both immediately noticing the woman who stood at the window, her back facing them. She was studying the destroyed world beyond, something both Time Lords recognized.

"First, there were the Daleks," the woman whispered, speaking to herself. "And then, there was a man who fought them. Soon, a woman joined him. And then, in time, she died and destroyed the man in the loss. There are a few, of course, who believe they somehow survived, and that one day they will return. For both our sakes, dearest Hannah, we must hope these stories are true."

"We got your message," the Doctor said, making the woman turn with a gasp. Her face was hidden beneath the hood of her cloak. "Not many people can do that, send us messages." They'd both received the psychic message and, though Adelaide had warned that it was likely a trap, she was honestly too curious to not listen. That characteristic was something that she'd never lost, regardless of regeneration or faulty chameleon arch.

"I have a daughter. Hannah. She's in a Dalek prison camp. They say you can help."

"Do they?" The Doctor grimaced. "I wish they'd stop." In order to maintain the illusion of Adelaide's death, they'd gone throughout the universe deleting themselves. Even if Adelaide had died because she wanted to, there had been a reason the Silence had targeted the Time Lords in the first place.

They had gotten too big, they needed to stay hidden.

And that wouldn't happen if people kept contacting them for help.

"I love your choice of meeting place."

The woman, Darla, shrugged. "They said I'd have to intrigue you."

"Skaro," Adelaide said, "the original planet of the Daleks."

The Doctor walked over to look out the window and the destruction beyond. "Look at the state of it." He turned to Darla. "Who told you about us?"

"Does it matter?"

"Maybe not, but you're very well informed."

Adelaide stepped forward. "If Hannah's in a Dalek prison camp, why aren't you?"

"I escaped."

The Doctor chuckled darkly at that. "No. Nobody escapes the Dalek camps." He touched her hand. "You're very cold."

"What's wrong?"

"It's a trap."

"What is?"

"You are, and you don't even know it." The Doctor backed away, Adelaide stopping beside him, as Darla's head opened to reveal a Dalek eyestalk. The woman raised her hand, a Dalek gun now, and shot them both.

|C-S|

Rory woke up on the floor of a white room, wincing. He sat up and saw Amy standing in the room as well, her arms crossed.

The last thing he remembered was...bringing Amy the divorce papers.

"Where are we?" He asked her, risking it given their current situation. She just nodded at the window, and Rory walked over to it. Given his time with the Time Lords, he could recognize a Dalek ship when he saw one and there were quite a few outside. "So how much trouble are we in?"

The door opened and a Dalek rolled inside.

"How much trouble, Mr. Pond?" The Doctor asked, him and Adelaide following the Dalek, with another one behind them. "Out of ten? Eleven."

The ceiling opened as the floor rose, lifting them up into a large room filled with Daleks. Off to the side, on a pedestal, was a Dalek without a case.

"Where are we?" Amy asked the Time Lords. "A spaceship, right?"

"Not just any spaceship...the Parliament of the Daleks. Be brave."

"What do we do?"

"Make them remember you." The Doctor glanced at Adelaide before spinning to the Daleks, spreading his arms. "Well, come on then. You've got me! What are you waiting for? At long last, it's Christmas! Here I am!" He closed his eyes, preparing for them to attack, but nothing happened.

"Save us!" The uncased Dalek said, making Adelaide frown. "You will save us."

"I'll what?"

"You will save the Daleks!"

"Save the Daleks!" The rest of the Daleks took up the chant. "Save the Daleks! Save the Daleks! Save the Daleks! Save the Daleks! Save the Daleks! Save the Daleks!"

"Well, this is new," the Doctor muttered, stepping back as Adelaide stepped up to join him.

|C-S|

By the time the Doctor started to pace, Adelaide just stood motionless, staring at some point in the distance as she thought. Amy and Rory stood a bit back from both of them, switching their gazes between the Time Lords and the Daleks that watched them.

"What're they doing?" Rory asked Amy.

"He's chosen the most defendable area in the room, she's counted all the Daleks and exits, and now he's calculating the exact distance we're standing apart and starting to worry. Oh, and look at him frowning now." Amy rolled her eyes. She couldn't see Adelaide's face, but she had no doubt the woman was keeping far better control over her expressions. "Something's wrong with Amy and Rory, and who's going to fix it?" He straightened his bow-tie. "And he straightens his bow-tie."

Rory raised his eyebrows at the Time Lords. "They're worried about us?"

The humans may not know exactly what had changed between the Time Lords, but they could recognize the fact that the Time Lords had yet to actually talk about their failing or failed relationship. Even they had noticed, in such a short time, what had changed with Adelaide's regeneration...which was still something they were both getting used to.

"We have arrived!" One of the Daleks shouted, making the Doctor stop and Adelaide look.

"Arrived where?"

"Doctor..."

Darla, who stood near the open-cased Dalek, stepped forward. "The Prime Minister will speak with you now." She nodded to Adelaide. "Both of you."

They stepped up, but the Doctor paused beside Darla first. "Do you remember who you were before they emptied you out and turned you into their puppet?"

"My memories are only reactivated if they are required to facilitate cover or disguise."

"You had a daughter."

"I know." Darla leaned forward. "I've read my file." She straightened again, holding out a hand to the Prime Minister.

The Time Lords stopped before the Dalek. "Well?" The Doctor asked it.

"What do you know of the Dalek Asylum?"

"According to legend, you have a dumping ground. A planet where you lock up all the Daleks that go wrong. The battle-scarred, the insane, the ones even you can't control." The Doctor shook his head. "It's never made any sense to me."

"Why not?"

"Because he expected you'd just kill them," Adelaide said.

"It is offensive to us to extinguish such divine hatred."

The Doctor made a disgusted noise. "Offensive?"

"Does it surprise you to know the Daleks have a concept of beauty?"

"I thought you'd run out of ways to make me sick." The Doctor leaned forward. "Hello again. You think hatred is beautiful." He pulled back, making to turn away.

"Perhaps that is why we have never been able to kill you." The Doctor stopped at that, taking a deep breath. Even Adelaide had to close her eyes momentarily.

They both moved when the floor next to Amy and Rory opened to reveal the planet they'd stopped above. It was clear the planet was surrounded by a thick forcefield.

"The Asylum," Darla explained. "It occupies the entire planet, right to the core."

"How many Daleks are there?" Adelaide asked.

"A count has not been made. Millions, certainly."

"All still alive?" The Doctor asked.

"It has to be assumed. The Asylum is fully automated, supervision is not required."

Amy nodded. "Armed?"

"The Daleks are always armed."

"What color?" Everyone looked at Rory. "Sorry, there weren't any good questions left."

Darla stepped back, hitting a button on a nearby control pillar. "This signal is being received from the very heart of the Asylum." Carmen started to echo throughout the room.

"What is the noise?" One of the Daleks asked. "Explain. Explain!"

The Doctor, however, only laughed. "Er, it's me."

Rory frowned. "Sorry, what?"

"It's me, playing the triangle," the Doctor mimed playing a triangle. "Okay, I got buried in the mix. Carmen, lovely show. Caroline and I..." but he trailed off because Caroline was not a subject he was comfortable with bringing up, especially now.

The moment he said the woman's name, Adelaide looked at him sharply, her jaw tightening.

The Doctor coughed. "Someone's transmitting this. Have you considered tracking back the signal and talking to them?"

"He asked the Daleks," Adelaide said, sighing.

He hurried over to the controls, sonicing them until the music turned to static. "Hello? Hello? Carmen? Hello?"

"Hello?" A voice called back, female and, it appeared, human.

"Come in! Come in! Come in, Carmen."

"Hello! Yes, yes, sorry. Do you read me?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, reading you loud and clear. Identify yourself and report your status."

"Hello...are you real? Are you actually properly real?"

He laughed. "Yes, confirmed. Actually properly real."

"Oswin Oswald, junior entertainment officer, Starship Alaska. Current status...crashed and shipwrecked somewhere...not nice. Been here a year, rest of the crew missing. Provisions good but keen to move on."

Adelaide stepped closer to the controls, not certain how long the range of the transmitter was. "A year? Are you under attack?"

"Some local lifeforms. Been keeping them out."

"Do you know what those lifeforms are?"

"I know a Dalek when I hear one, yeah."

"What have you been doing on your own against the Daleks for a year?"

"...making soufflés?"

"Souffles? Against the Daleks?" The Doctor laughed.

Adelaide looked at a point in the distance, thinking. "Where did you get the milk?"

"This conversation is irrelevant," the white Dalek informed them.

The Doctor, suddenly extremely defensive, spun to face it. "No, it isn't! Adelaide never says something irrelevant!"

"No!" Oswin cried, before the static started again, taking over. "Hello? Hello?" And then she was gone.

"A Starliner crashed into your Asylum," Adelaide informed the Daleks, "and someone has broken in. If someone can get in, everything can get out."

The Doctor nodded. "A tsunami of insane Daleks. Even you don't want that."

"The Asylum must be cleansed!"

"Then why is it still here? You've enough firepower on this ship to blast it out of the sky."

"The Asylum forcefield is impenetrable," Darla said.

"Turn it off."

"It can only be turned off from within the Asylum."

"A small taskforce could sneak through a forcefield. Send in a couple of Daleks...oh..." The Doctor looked around, realizing at the same moment as Adelaide, for once, and started clapping. "Oh, that's good. That's brilliant. You're all too scared to go down there. Not one of you will go, so tell me, what do the Daleks do when they're too scared?"

"The Predator of the Daleks will be deployed!"

The Doctor scoffed. "You don't have a Predator, and even if you did, why would they turn off a forcefield for you?"

"Because you will have no other means of escape," the Prime Minister told them.

Darla leaned forward, spotting the Doctor's confused expression and speaking before Adelaide could. "May I clarify? The Predator is the Dalek's word for you."

The Doctor gasped. "Me? Me?"

"You will need this. It will protect you from the nanocloud." Two humanoid Dalek puppets walked over to the group, one putting wristbands on the Time Lords while the other did the same to the humans.

"The what?" The Doctor asked, studying the band. "The nano what?"

"The gravity beam will convey you close to the source of the transmission," Darla said, a puppet dragging the Doctor and Adelaide closer to the humans. "You must find a way to deactivate the forcefield from there."

Adelaide looked at her incredulously. "You're going to fire us at a planet? That's your plan? You fire us at a planet and expect him to fix it?"

Rory shrugged. "In fairness, that is slightly his M.O.."

"Don't be fair to the Daleks when they're firing us at a planet!" He narrowed his eyes at Rory before spinning to the Daleks. "What do you want with them?"

"It is known the Doctor requires his protector and companions."

Rory scoffed. "Oh, brilliant, good."

"Don't worry. We'll get through this, I promise. Don't be scared."

Amy smirked. "Scared? Who's scared? Geronimo."

The Doctor had just started to grin when they were shoved into the beam, falling to the surface of the Asylum. Rory ended up falling head-first, but when the beam split into two...

It was Adelaide who fell with the human.

 **A/N: And welcome to the fifth story of the series! We have a new companion on the way, and a certain anniversary special...fun times ahead.**

 **As a refresher, I picture Adelaide's current regeneration (recently regenerated) to resemble Julianne Moore. She tends to favor dark pants, dark green/black tank-tops, dark green/black sweaters, and black Oxfords. Clearly, Adelaide has a color scheme ;) If you don't mind spoilers for future stories, I have a set made for her on my Polyvore.**


	2. Forgets

**Forgets**

Adelaide woke first, wincing from the various points of pain from the impact. She looked to the side to see Rory lying there, still unconscious, but he woke as something green dripped onto his face. "What happened?" he groaned.

"The Daleks have terrible aim." She sat up. "The Doctor, at least, just woke up, so they're both likely still alive if that's any consolation."

"How do you know that?"

"All Time Lords are psychically bonded. If I focus, I could discern exactly where he is on this planet." She leaped standing and immediately froze.

She hadn't actually looked around yet and now found herself surrounded by Daleks. However, none of them moved. She reached out and poked one, making it roll away. Rory moved to stand beside her. "I've got a light," he said, holding out a penlight.

She pulled out her sonic. "So have I." She frowned. "Why do you have a penlight?"

"Never know where I'd end up, traveling with the Doctor. Wanted to stay prepared."

Adelaide nodded. Out of the two humans, Rory was the one she'd taken to more originally, with his observations of the awake coma patients helping them solve the Prisoner Zero issue. He was still far more emotional than she liked, but he had always remained devoted to Amy...unlike the woman in question.

"How have you been coping with your separation?"

He looked at her sharply. "How do you know..."

"I make observations, Rory. Even I can notice difficulties in a relationship." Rory scoffed at that. "What?"

"Just...it's a bit rich, coming from you."

"Excuse me?"

"Just saying, you and the Doctor shouldn't be the ones offering relationship advice," he shrugged.

Adelaide clenched her jaw and walked forward, not wanting to comment. True, she and the Doctor were not the epitome of a healthy relationship. They'd gone from barely speaking to hiding their feelings to devoted to each other to barely speaking again. Now, despite her regeneration, they'd reached a point of collaborating but still being uncertain about it.

And she knew why.

Her previous regeneration had, undoubtedly, been in love with the Doctor. And then the whole discovery of Alignment had happened, and she'd had to fight that love. Now...now, this regeneration was attempting to decide if she was still in love.

The problem was that the Doctor was so damn wonderful. He was enthusiastic and good and clever and loyal and dedicated and curious and understanding and sometimes just so annoying because he tried so damn hard to fix everything and everyone. And that wasn't even that annoying.

Adelaide stopped when she entered the next room. It was also full of Daleks, but there were a few more lights flickering in the walls. She held up a hand, but Rory had already leaned forward to move an eyestalk out of his way...and then it swiveled back to look at him. Instantly, he stepped back and kicked a metal bar, making a loud sound echo around the room.

The Dalek he'd touched started to light up, and soon the others in the room started to do the same. "Ex...ee...eee...ex...ee..."

Rory frowned. "What? Sorry, what?"

"Rory, don't engage."

"Ex...egg...ee...eg...ex..."

He pointed at one of the balls from the Dalek casing on the ground. "Eggs? You mean those things?"

"Just stay quiet."

"Are those things eggs?"

"They're not asking for eggs!"

As she said that, the Dalek began to finish the word. "Egg...stir...min...ate...exterminate!" All of the Daleks started to shout the word, and Adelaide and Rory started to run. Weapon blasts just missed them both. "Exterminate!"

"Run!" A voice, Oswin, shouted at them both. "The door at the end, run for it. They're waking up, but they're slow. The door at the end. Just run. Now! Now! Now!" The pair listened to her, the door rising just enough for them both to slide under it before shutting again. They could still hear the Daleks in the other room but, for the moment at least, they were safe. "So, anyway, I'm Oswin. What do I call you?"

"Adelaide," she said, flicking a few buttons on her sonic.

Rory shook his head. "Er...I can't remember...er...Rory."

"Lovely name, Rory. First boy I ever fancied was called Rory."

He nodded. "Okay."

"Actually, she was called Nina. I was going through a phase. Just flirting to keep you cheerful!"

"Exterminate!" A Dalek shouted from a room they couldn't see.

"Okay, any time you want to start flirting again is fine by me."

"What about you, sweet lady? Open to some flirting? Or are you and the chin still a thing?"

Adelaide sighed. "We're...not a thing."

"Really?"

"Shut up."

Rory actually laughed at that. "I don't think I've ever heard you say that."

|C-S|

They'd started exploring in an attempt to find a place to contact the Doctor via, with Oswin guiding them. "Hey there, Beaky Boy!" Oswin called.

"If it's a straight choice, I prefer Nina," Rory sighed.

"Loving this." Oswin laughed. "The Nose and the Chin. You two could fence, and your lady-friends could cheer you on. There's a door behind you." The door in question opened, and the pair walked through. "In there, quickly. Okay, you're safe for now. Pop your shirt off, Nose, quick as you like."

"Why?"

"Does there have to be a reason?"

Rory glanced at Adelaide. "Don't say anything."

"So now you're telling me to shut up?"

"Ooo, trouble in paradise." There was the sound of Oswin putting her elbows on something. "Want to talk about your relationship troubles, little lady?"

Adelaide stepped up to the dais at the center of the room, looking it over. "Not particularly."

"Aw, you're no fun."

"My apologies."

"Don't worry, I can forgive you."

|C-S|

Adelaide and Rory leaped up when a shockwave hit the room they were sitting in. "Oswin?" Rory called. "What was that? That was close."

Oswin opened the nearby door, letting the pair enter the next room, which was obviously where the explosion had come from. It was filled with smoke and dust, various debris and rubble scattered about. And various dead Daleks.

"Oswin?" Adelaide asked. "Who killed all the Daleks?"

The Doctor emerged through the dust, carrying an unconscious Amy. "Who do you think?"

Adelaide frowned at Amy. "What happened?"

"The explosion knocked her out."

"The protection from the nanocloud." Rory's eyes widened as she said that, realizing that Amy had, indeed, somehow lost the bracelet the Daleks had given them.

"What does that mean?" Rory asked them. "What's going to happen to Amy?"

"The nanocloud is going to attempt to turn her into a Dalek." Adelaide stepped back. "Lay her down here." She guided the Doctor back to the previous room, the Doctor laying Amy on the dais.

Rory, seemingly unable to help himself, bounced around a bit. "Will sleeping help her? Will it slow down the process?"

"You'd better hope so," Oswin called, "because pretty soon she's going to try and kill you."

The Doctor knelt down to be closer to Amy's eye level as she started to stir. "Amy."

The human made a face, pressing a hand to her head. "Ow."

"Amy. Still with us."

Rory came to Amy's other side. "Amy, it's me. Do you remember me?" Amy slapped him. "She remembers me."

The Doctor laughed. "Same old Amy."

"Do you know how you make someone into a Dalek?" Oswin asked. "Subtract love, add anger. Doesn't she seem a bit too angry to you?"

"Well," Amy sat up, glaring at the camera in the corner, "somebody's never been to Scotland."

Adelaide glanced at the camera. "Why hasn't the nanocloud converted you, Oswin?"

"I mentioned the genius thing, yeah? Shielded in here."

The Doctor nodded. "Clever of you." He looked around the room. "Now, this place. The Daleks said it was fully automated. Look at it. It's a wreck."

"Well, I've had nearly a year to mess with them, and not a lot else to do."

"A junior entertainment manager hiding out in a wrecked ship, hacking the security systems of the most advanced warrior race the Universe has ever seen. But you know what really gets me about you, Oswin? The soufflés. Where do you get milk for the soufflés?"

Adelaide sighed. "Thank goodness you finally recognize the issue."

He looked at Amy and Rory. "Is no one else wondering about that?"

"No," Rory said. "Frankly, no. Twice."

"So, Doctor," Oswin continued. "I've been looking you up. You're all over the Database. Why do the Daleks call you the Predator?"

His jaw tensed. "I'm not the Predator, I'm just a man with a plan."

"A man with a plan who apparently needs someone to protect him."

"I don't protect the Doctor-"

"The Daleks disagree, little lady. You're not here as much but you're here...protecting, apparently. One would assume you're the one with the plans."

Adelaide crossed her arms. "Occasionally, but plans are all he is, so I tend to let him take charge."

The Doctor pouted at that, but when she gestured at him he spoke. "In no particular order, we need to neutralize all the Daleks in this Asylum, rescue Oswin from the wreckage, escape from this planet, and fix Amy and Rory's marriage."

Amy sighed. "Okay, I'm counting three lost causes. Anyone else?"

"Oswin, there's a Dalek ship in orbit."

"Yes, got it on the sensors."

"The Asylum has a forcefield. The Daleks upstairs are waiting for me to turn it off. Soon as I do, they'll burn this whole world and us with it." He clapped. "So, Oswin, my question is this: how fast can you drop the forcefield?"

"Pretty fast. But why would I?"

He stepped onto the dais. "Because this is a teleport. Am I right, Oswin?"

"Yeah. Internal use only."

He snapped, crouching down to sonic. "I can boost the power. Once the forcefield is down, I can use it to beam us right off this planet."

"You said when the forcefield is down the Daleks will blow us up."

The Doctor nodded. "We'll have to be quick, yes."

"Fine, we'll be quick," Amy said. "But where do we beam to?"

"The only place within range," Adelaide answered. "The Dalek ship."

"They'll exterminate us on the spot!"

Rory sighed. "Ah, so this is the kind of escape plan where you survive about four seconds longer."

"What's wrong with four seconds? You can do loads in four seconds. Oswin, how fast can you drop the forcefield?"

"I can do it from here, as soon as you come and get me."

"No, just drop the forcefield and come to us."

"There's enough power in that teleport for one go. Why would you wait for me?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Why wouldn't we?"

"No idea. Never met you." A pause. "Sending you a map so you can come get me." A map flickered onto a nearby screen.

Rory shook his head. "This place is crawling with Daleks."

"Yeah. Kind of why I'm anxious to leave. Come up and see me sometime."

Rory stepped up to the Doctor's side. "So, are we going to get her?"

The Time Lord looked to Adelaide. "We don't have a choice," Adelaide said and he nodded.

"Okay, as soon as the forcefield is down the Daleks will attack. If it gets too explody-wody in here, you go without us, okay?"

"And leave you to die?"

The Doctor waved a hand. "Oh, don't worry about us. You're the one beaming up to a Dalek ship to get exterminated."

"Fair point, love this plan." Rory glanced back at Amy. "What about Amy?"

"Keep her remembering, keep her focused. That'll hold back the conversion."

Amy shook her head. "What do I do?"

Adelaide glanced over. "You heard Oswin. They're subtracting love; don't let them."

The Time Lords left the humans, knowing they weren't the best to attempt to fix their relationship but couldn't help themselves.

|C-S|

As the sounds of Daleks grew louder, the Doctor called out for Oswin. "Oswin, I think we're close."

"You are. Less than twenty feet away. Which is the good news..."

"Okay. And the bad, which I suddenly feel is coming?"

"You're about to pass through Intensive Care." The door in front of them slid open, and the Time Lords stepped inside carefully.

There were various Daleks in individual cells, some even chained in place. "What's so special about this lot, then?"

"Don't know," Oswin sighed. "Survivors of particular wars. Spiridon, Kembel, Aridius, Vulcan, Exxilon...ringing any bells?"

Adelaide nodded. "All of them." She and the Doctor may have only met once on Gallifrey, but by now they had determined that she'd tended to visit planets after him to study the civilizations he left behind.

She'd seen his wreckage.

"Yeah? How?"

"These are the Daleks who survived me."

The Daleks started to shake themselves awake, lights flickering. "Doc...tor...Doc...tor... ..."

"That's weird," Oswin said. "Those ones don't usually wake up for anything."

The Doctor shrugged. "Yeah, well, special visitor." They walked to the door on the other side of the room, but nothing happened. "Okay, door, but it won't open. We can't be far away, though."

"Hang on, not quite sure...there's a release code. Let me just...anything out there?"

"No!"

"Hang on, I'm trying to think."

The Doctor tried sonicing the door, but Adelaide was focused on a chained up Dalek that was currently attempting, very hard, to break its chains. When it did, she grabbed the Doctor's shoulder. "Oswin, get this door open!" Adelaide ordered.

Other Daleks rolled forward, twitching, not attacking but closing in. "Just get this door open!" The Doctor shouted. "Oswin! Get this door open!"

But then all of the Daleks stopped. After a moment of appearing to study them, all of the Daleks turned and rolled away again. "Oh, that is cool. Tell me I'm cool, chin-boy and little lady."

"What...what did you do?"

"Hang on, I think I've found the door thingy."

"No, tell us what you did."

"The Daleks, they have a hive mind," Oswin explained. "Well, they don't, they have a sort of telepathic web..."

The Doctor nodded. "The Path Web, yes."

"I hacked into it, did a mass delete on all the information connected with the Doctor and Adelaide."

Adelaide's eyes widened. "You made them forget us?"

"Good, eh? And here comes the door." The door behind them rose.

"I've tried hacking into the Path Web," the Doctor said. "Even I couldn't do it."

"Come and meet the girl who can."

But when they turned, expecting to see a human woman standing there with a grin, they found a chained up Dalek.

Of course. Adelaide should have thought, she should have realized...

"Hey, you're right outside, come on in!" Oswin said, but now she sounded like a Dalek, whatever filter that had been on her words earlier fading away.

"Oswin, we have a problem..."

"No, we don't. Don't even say that. Joined the Alaska to see the universe, ended up stuck in a shipwreck first time out. Rescue me, chin-boy and little lady, and show me the stars."

Adelaide frowned at Oswin...the Dalek...Oswin... "Does it look real to you?"

"Does what look real?"

"Where you are, right now. Does it seem real to you?"

"It is real!"

"It's a dream, Oswin. You must have dreamed it for yourself because the truth was too terrible."

She was silent for a minute. "Where am I? Where...am...I? Where...am...I?"

The Doctor took a deep breath. "Because you...are a Dalek."

"I am not a Dalek. I am not a Dalek! I'm human."

"You were human when you crashed here," the Doctor explained. "It was you who climbed out of the pod. That was your ladder."

"You mean...human..."

Adelaide shook her head. "Not anymore. You were right, you are a genius, and the Daleks need genius."

"They didn't just make you a puppet, they did a full conversion. Oswin, I'm so sorry, but you are a Dalek...the milk, Oswin. The milk and the eggs for the souffles...where did it all come from?"

"Eggs..."

"It wasn't real. It was never real."

"Stir...min...ate..." Oswin said.

"Oswin?"

"Eggs...tir...min...ate..." She raised the weapon, straining against the chains. "Exterminate!"

The Doctor held up his hands, both Time Lords backing towards the door. "Oswin! No, no, no, Oswin. Oswin!"

"Exterminate!"

"Listen, Oswin, you don't have to do this."

"Exterminate!" She broke through the chains, advancing.

"Oswin!"

Then she stopped and, for the first time ever, the Time Lords heard a Dalek cry. "Why...do they hate you...so much? They hate you..." The eyestalk twitched to look at them, "so much. Why?"

"I have fought them many, many times."

"We have," Adelaide corrected.

"We have grown stronger in fear of you," she said.

He nodded. "I know. We tried to stop."

"Then run."

"What did you say?"

"I've taken down the forcefield. The Daleks above have begun their attack. Run!" The door behind them opened.

"Oswin...are you..."

"I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks. And I am human!"

The Doctor grinned. "Thank you!"

"Run!"

The Time Lords turned and ran back through the Asylum, dodging the effects of the Daleks attacking the planet, until they reached the teleport room. "Right, go!" They leaped onto the console as Amy and Rory, despite everything going on around them, continued kissing. "Let's go! We're good, let's go!" The Doctor sighed. "Oh, for God's sake." He snatched the controls from Rory and hit the button, with the humans continuing to kiss.

|C-S|

"You know," the Doctor shouted to the Daleks as he sauntered towards the door, "you guys should really have seen this coming. The thing about me and teleports, I've got really good aim. Pin-point accurate, in fact. Or, to put it another way..." He bounded out of the TARDIS, Adelaide stepping out a second later, "suckers!"

"Identify yourself!" A Dalek shouted. "Identify! Identify!"

He spread his arms. "It's me! You know me. The Doctor, the Oncoming Storm, the Predator..." He pointed at Adelaide, "Adelaide, the protector..."

"Titles are not meaningful in this context," Darla said. "Doctor who?"

"Doctor who?"

"Doctor who?"

The Doctor actually laughed at the situation. "Oh, Oswin...oh, you did it to them all. You beauty!"

"Doctor who? Doctor who?"

"Fellas, you're never going to stop asking." He turned, grabbing Adelaide's hands and spinning them in a circle before running into the TARDIS.

 **A/N: What's this, Adelaide still thinks the Doctor is wonderful? Maybe the Time Lords aren't fated for so much hardship ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: So am I :)_


	3. Jealousy

**Jealousy**

Adelaide, for once in her life, did not mind the fact that she and the Doctor were currently rushing back to the TARDIS without saying a proper goodbye.

Of course, it had nothing to do with the fact that Adelaide wanted to punch a certain Egyptian queen for her advances on the Doctor. And if it did, it was just because the Time Lord was making it very clear he wanted none of it and the woman wasn't respecting that.

That was all it was.

No jealousy at all.

"Bye then!" The Doctor called back, running after Adelaide towards the TARDIS. "Lovely meeting you! Sorry about the mess!"

The Doctor, however, was pulled back by said Egyptian queen and pushed against one of the TARDIS doors. "You think I'll just let you leave without me, after what we've just been through?" She stroked his hair.

"You've got the Egyptian people to rule, Queen Nefertiti! They'll need reassuring after that weapon-bearing giant alien locust attack we just stopped rather brilliantly thanks to some of Adelaide's great work..."

Adelaide, who had already stepped into the TARDIS, pulled the door open so the Doctor fell back. She grabbed him and twisted so that the one TARDIS door was shut against Nefertiti, but he was inside. "There's an alert I think you'd find interesting," she said, just as something in his pocket beeped.

He pulled a phone from his pocket, grinning. "I've got it set to Temporal News For You."

She sighed. "Where did you get my phone?"

He just smirked, pleased, and ran up to the console to set the TARDIS in motion. She joined him and neither Time Lord noticed Nefertiti until they had already landed at their new destination.

|C-S|

The Time Lords stood before a screen with a woman, Indira, beside them explaining the situation behind the ship that they could currently see heading straight for Earth. "Craft size approximately ten million square kilometers."

"A ship the size of Canada coming at Earth very fast..." The Doctor said.

"Any signs of life?"

"We sent up a drone craft. It took these readings." Indira brought them up.

"Crikey Charlie, look at that! I know someone who'd love to have a look at that...and the Ponds." The Doctor pointed at Adelaide. "Mustn't forget the Ponds."

She raised her eyebrows. "I was never the one who forgot them."

He shrugged. "Haven't seen them in ages. I'm riffing. People, usually Adelaide, stop me when I'm riffing...or carry on without me. That's also an option."

Nefertiti stepped forward, the Doctor promising Adelaide there'd be some memory wiping involved with the Egyptian queen. "Can you communicate with this craft?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "She's with us. Good question, Neffy."

"No," Indira said. "No response on any channel, in any recognized language. If it comes within ten thousand kilometers of Earth, we send up missiles."

He sighed. "Oh, Indira, I liked you before you said missiles."

"How long do we have until then?" Adelaide asked.

"Six hours, nineteen minutes."

He rubbed his hands together. "Right. Better get a shift on, then. Leave it with us. Come on, Neffy. We're going to need help."

|C-S|

The Doctor slid next to the man sitting eating stew in the middle of the African plains. "More stew?"

The man jumped and then realized who sat next to him. "Where've you been, man? Seven months! You said you were popping out for some licorice. I had two very disappointed dancers on my hands. Not that I couldn't manage..." He spotted Adelaide stepping out of the dark. "And hello again," he winked.

"Shut up please."

The Doctor leaned forward. "I don't think a 'please' makes that polite..."

Adelaide just raised her eyebrows at him. "Riddell, we've found something."

"No, no, no, no, no, I shan't fall for that again!" But then he smirked. "What is it?"

"We've no idea." She stepped back, gesturing towards the TARDIS. "Would you like to find out?" She turned and walked away.

Riddell glanced at the Doctor, who was watching Adelaide walk away with a face Riddell recognized well. "Still no success?" he asked, clapping him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll show you how it's done." He strode after Adelaide, with the Doctor rushing after him once he realized what that could imply.

|C-S|

The reason Adelaide allowed the Doctor to pilot the TARDIS directly on top of the Ponds was...she didn't realize it was happening. She was fairly certain the Doctor and Riddell had teamed up so the human was distracting her while the Doctor piloted. Apparently, he wanted to surprise them and didn't want her to ruin the surprise by making them knock on the door.

Thus, she was as surprised as the humans when the Ponds, a ladder, and an older man appeared in the middle of the TARDIS.

"Hello!" The Doctor called from the console. "You weren't busy, were you? Well, even if you were, it wasn't as interesting as this probably is. Didn't want you to miss it!"

"Doctor?" Adelaide called, crossing her arms.

"Now, just a quick hop..." He ran around the console until they jerked to a stop. "Everybody grab a torch!" He ran out of the TARDIS, Adelaide not looking back as she followed him. "Spiders." He pointed at a web in the corner. "Don't normally get spiders in space."

"What the..." The man, who Adelaide was now remembering to be Brian, Rory's father, breathed.

The Doctor spun to him, narrowed eyes. "Don't move! Do you really think that I'm that stupid that I wouldn't notice? How did you get aboard, eh? Transmat? Who sent you?"

Rory leaned forward. "Doctor, that's my dad."

"Well frankly," he spun to the human, "that's outrageous."

"What?"

"You think you can just bring your dad along without asking? I'll be surprised if Adelaide doesn't slap you!"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "You materialized around them."

"Oh...well, that's fine, then. My mistake." He spun back to Brian. "Hello, Brian, how are you?" He shook the man's hand. "Nice to meet you. Welcome, welcome. This is the gang," he gestured at all the people around them, "I've got a gang, yes. Come on then, everyone." Adelaide and he walked off, Nefertiti and Riddell hurrying after them, with Amy pausing to talk to Rory before doing the same. Rory, meanwhile, once again had to attempt to explain time and space travel to someone.

They hadn't gotten far before the ship shook and something thumped in the distance. "Alright, where are we?" Amy asked the Time Lords. "What is that noise and hello," she hit the Doctor's arm, "ten months?"

"We're on a spaceship," Adelaide said, "how can we be expected to know what that noise was when we only just arrived, and hello."

The Doctor grinned. "Hello, Pond!" He gave Amy a one-armed hug. "Ten months, time flies...never really understood that phrase. This is Neffy, this is Riddell. They're with us."

Riddell grinned, waving. "Charmed."

Amy frowned. "With you? They're with you? Are they the new us? Is that why we haven't seen you?"

"No! They're just people, they're not Ponds. I thought we might need a new gang. Never really had a gang before. It's new." The group slowed, hearing a sound, and seeing the lights of a lift coming towards them. "It's coming down."

Riddell stiffened. "What is it?"

"No idea."

There was another thud, and the lift opened...revealing two ankylosauruses.

"Not possible..." Brian breathed.

"Run!" The Doctor shouted, and everyone but him turned and ran. Everyone but him and Adelaide, that is. The Time Lords stood, grinning, and then looked at each other. "I know!"

"Dinosaurs!"

"On a spaceship!"

Amy, sighing, grabbed both Time Lords and pulled them back as the dinosaurs walked towards them. Riddell hurried to cover them all with his weapon. "In here!" Nefertiti called, gesturing them towards a small break in the crates as a hiding space.

Riddell pulled out an impressively large knife as the dinosaurs neared. "I could take one of them. Short blow up the throat."

"We just found dinosaurs in space!" She hissed. "We need to preserve them."

"Who's going to preserve us?"

Amy pressed a hand to Adelaide's mouth to keep her from speaking. "Shush."

They heard the dinosaurs walk away, tails knocking various things off the wall. After a few seconds, Riddell stepped into the corridor and nodded, reassuring them it was safe.

Rory shook his head. "Okay, so...how? And whose ship?"

"Well, there's so much to discover," the Doctor shrugged. "Think how wise we'll be by the end of all this."

Brian held out a hand. "Sorry, sorry, are you saying dinosaurs are flying a spaceship?"

"Brian, please, that would be ridiculous! They're probably just passengers." He paused. "Did we mention missiles?"

"Missiles?"

"Didn't want to worry you. Anyway, six hours is a lifetime...not literally a lifetime, that's what we're trying to avoid. And we're all really clever." He rubbed his hands together. "Ooo, let's see what we can find out. Come on!" He hurried down the corridor until he reached a room full of equipment, and went up to a monitor, pulling off the spider webs.

"How many dinosaurs do you think are on here?" Amy asked.

The Doctor soniced the computer and then did a little dance in excitement. "Oh, well done, whoever you are. Looking for engines." The screen switched. "Thank you, computer." He patted the side. "Look at that. Different sections have engines, but these look like the primary clusters. Where are we now, computer?" Adelaide stepped between him and Brian to look at the screen. "We need to get down to these engines..."

There was a flash of light and the quartet reappeared on something that appeared to be a beach.

"...and find out..." The Doctor looked around, realizing where they were "What?"

Adelaide just sighed. "It was a voice activated computer."

"We're outside," Brian gasped. "We're on a beach."

The Doctor made a face, grumbling. "Oh, I hate teleports."

"Yes, well, thank you, Arthur C. Clarke. Teleport, obviously. I mean, we're on a spaceship with dinosaurs. Why wouldn't there be a teleport? In fact, why don't we just teleport now?" Brian stormed off, throwing up his hands.

The Doctor frowned at him. "Is he alright?"

"No, he hates travelling," Rory said. "Makes him really anxious. He only goes to the paper shop and golf."

"What did you bring him for?"

"I didn't!" Rory turned to Adelaide. "Why didn't you just phone ahead like you normally do?"

"The Doctor didn't let me."

"I did no such thing!"

Brian, looking slightly calmer, stalked back over to them. "Somebody tell me where we are, now."

The Doctor stuck his tongue out to taste the air. "Well, it's not Earth. Doesn't taste right. Too metallic."

A large bird screeched above them, and Brian looked up. "Is that a kestrel?"

"I do hope so."

Rory frowned, looking down. "The beach is humming."

The Time Lord knelt down to touch the ground. "Oh, yes!" He popped up, brushing his hand off on his pants. "Right, well, don't just stand there, you two. Dig. We're going to look at rocks!" The Doctor ran off towards the rocks in the distance, Adelaide going after him to stop him from wandering too far, since she knew that Rory and his father were more likely to stay put. "Love a rock!"

"Dig with what?" Rory called after them.

"You have a penlight and not a trowel?" Adelaide asked, turning to walk backward.

However, as she spoke, Brian pulled a collapsible trowel from his pocket, "ah, well." Adelaide laughed at that, before turning to stop the Doctor from turning and running into the water in his glee.

"Did you just have that on you?" Rory asked his father.

"Of course! What sort of man doesn't carry a trowel? Put it on your Christmas list."

Rory sighed. "Dad, I'm 31. I don't have a Christmas list anymore."

The Doctor spun, spreading out his arms with a grin. "I do!"

Adelaide looked at him. "Really?"

"Of course!"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He frowned. "Why would you want to know?"

Adelaide held up the wrist with the bracelet he'd given her their first Christmas as Time Lords. "I wanted to return the favor but couldn't think of anything. Just because learning about our Alignment..." She trailed off as she realized exactly what she was saying, seeming to not have fully thought through it before she started. "We need to find a computer terminal." She turned, despite Rory shouting after them, and walked off.

By the time they found one in a nearby cliff face, Rory and Brian had come up and informed them they'd found a metal floor right below the sand. "See?" The Doctor said, coughing as he brought up a reading of the engines. "Metal floors, screens in rocks. It was just a matter of a short range teleport. We're still on the ship."

Brian shook his head. "No, we're outside on a beach."

"It's part of the ship, Dad."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"The Doctor is always ridiculous," Adelaide said.

"Also brilliant." He smirked. "That's why the system teleported us here. I wanted the engines," he threw out his arms, "this is the engine room! Hydrogenerators! Ha!"

Brian shook his head again. "I have literally no idea what he's saying."

"A spaceship powered by waves," Rory offered.

The Doctor slung his arms around Brian and Rory's shoulders. "Fabulously impossible! Oh, think of the things we could learn from this ship if we manage to stop it being blown to pieces."

"And not die," Adelaide added.

"Bad news, can't shut the wave system down in time. Takes..." He looked up, watching the creatures flying, and making Adelaide look up too, "takes way too long."

Rory frowned. "If these are the engines, there must be a control room."

"Exactly. That's what we need to find."

Adelaide nodded. "Now, what are we going to do about the things that aren't kestrels?" The creatures soared closer, screeching.

"Oh my Lord. Are those pterodactyls?"

"On any other occasion, I'd be thrilled. Exposed on a beach, less thrilled."

The Doctor nodded. "We should be going." He took off as the pterodactyls swooped down, the rest following him.

"Where?"

"Definitely away from them!"

Rory scoffed. "That's the plan?"

"That's the plan. Amendments welcome! Move away from the pterodactyls."

The dinosaurs screeched again. "I think they might be noticing!"

"Amendment one, run!" They started to move faster.

"Why don't we just teleport or something?"

"Local teleport burnt out on arrival!"

Adelaide pointed, redirecting them towards the cliffs. "There's something in the cliffs!"

Rory pulled Brian's arm, trying to keep him moving. "Come on!"

"I'm trying!"

They ducked into the small cave just as the pterodactyls swiped at Rory's shoulder, but thankfully once they were inside there was no way the dinosaurs could reach them. Immediately, Brian turned to his son, looking him over. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Rory rolled his shoulders. "Right, what do we do now? There's no way back out there."

"Through the cave. Come on." The Doctor turned, and then they heard a thudding in the distance. "That suggestion was a work in progress."

"We're trapped!"

"Yes, thanks for spelling it out."

"Manners," Adelaide told the Time Lord.

Rory stepped forward. "Whatever's down there is coming this way."

The Doctor sighed. "Spelling it out is hereditary. Wonderful." He looked to Adelaide. "Don't tell me you're not annoyed by this?"

"I have enough sense not to say everything I'm thinking," she told him.

"That sound's getting nearer!"

Two large robots rounded the corner, one pointing at the group. "We're very cross with you."

"Come with us," the second told them, both of them stepping to the side to let the entire group step through.

"You're going straight on the naughty step!"

"What's the escape plan?" Brian hissed to the Time Lords.

The Doctor frowned. "Why do we want to escape?"

"They have us hostage!"

"They're taking us somewhere," Rory said, sighing. "We might learn from it."

The Doctor pinched Rory's cheek. "Oh, you see? He's so clever when he tries. I've missed you, Rory."

Rory swat his hand away. "Don't do that."

"What if they kill us?"

"They wouldn't do that! You're not going to kill us, are you, Rusty?"

"Who are you calling Rusty?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Have you seen yourselves lately?"

"You try being on this ship for two millennia. See how your paintwork does."

"Don't listen to him," the second robot said. "He's just being mean because we captured him."

"Can I apologize for my friend?" Adelaide said. "He has terrible manners."

"Oi!"

"You do!"

Brian's mouth dropped open as he spotted something over the Doctor's shoulder. "Oh my goodness..."

Rory's eyes widened. "Whoa!"

The Time Lords spun, both of them gasping. "Ooo!" The Doctor said.

Adelaide glanced at the humans, Brian in particular, who looked terrified. "Herbivore, Brian. Triceratops."

"Ha! Beautiful!"

The first robot held up his weapon. "Shall I shoot it?"

"We're not supposed to shoot the creatures, stupid!"

"Stop calling me stupid!"

The dinosaur gave a little roar. "Roar yourself," the Doctor said, stepping forward to pet it. "Hello, cutie. Good boy. Who's a lovely Tricy then? Yes, you are, yes, you are."

The dinosaur trotted over to Brian, sniffing him, and making the man look around in panic. "What do I do? What do I do?" It moved closer to a certain area. "What're you doing? What're you doing?"

Adelaide sighed. "Do you have any vegetable matter in your trousers?"

"Only my balls." Rory's reaction to that statement was to shake his head, covering his face with his hands.

"Golf?" Adelaide asked, remembering what Rory had said earlier.

Brian confirmed it by pulling out a pair of golf balls. "Grassy residue."

Rory shook his head. "What are you carrying those around for?"

The dinosaur, moving even closer to Brian and licked his face, making the man grimace in disgust. "Urgh!"

"Aw," the Doctor grinned, "bless."

"Get it away from me!"

Adelaide gestured towards the golf balls. "Throw one."

Brian held one out, watching the dinosaur follow it around. "Really? Is this what you want? Is it?" He threw one down the corridor, and the dinosaur ran after it.

The Doctor put his hands on Brian's shoulders. "And breath out." He turned away, facing the robots. "Right, take us to your leader."

Adelaide sighed. "Really?"

"Too good to resist."

|C-S|

The robots brought them to what seemed to be where another ship had attached to the main one, a large gate separating the two. The Doctor attempted to see through to the room beyond. "Love what you've done to the place down here," he called, spotting a figure in the room.

"Let him in. Open the gate."

One of the robots opened the gate, letting the Doctor step through. He glanced back at Adelaide, not wanting to leave her, not now, but she nodded at him. "It's fine, it's fine." He honestly didn't know who he was talking to, himself or the humans.

They'd been apart before, countless times, but normally...normally it wasn't in the dark. Not that the ship was even that dark but he could see she was uncomfortable, she'd been uncomfortable since they'd gotten here because it was just dark enough and he didn't want that. He never wanted that. He wanted Adelaide to be as happy as physically possible. He never wanted her to be afraid.

The first robot turned to the group left outside. "He's not interested in you."

"Look, you need to learn some manners," Rory told it.

"No, you need to learn some manners."

"No, you do!"

"No, you do!" The second robot said. "Mr. Manners."

Adelaide sighed at the group, exchanging a look with Brian, as the Doctor approached the man lying in the room. He couldn't help but notice the music softly playing in the background. "Fantasia in F minor for four hands."

"You know it?"

"Know it?" He held up his hands. "Say hello to hands three and four! Schubert kept tickling me to try to put me off...Franz the hands. Adelaide refused to help me, she was just laughing the whole time." He sighed. "Oh, that takes me back." He turned around, taking in the entirety of the room. "Well, this is cozy."

"It's fate you came."

"Is it? I'm the Doctor."

"Yes, I know," the man nodded towards a series of security monitors. "I'm Solomon."

A computer scanned the Doctor with a laser. "What's that?"

"System malfunction. Ignore it."

He frowned at Solomon. "What happened to you?"

"I was attacked. Three raptors. They cornered me. The robots rescued me but it was nearly too late."

The Doctor glanced back at the robots, who were still fighting with Rory. "Ah yes, the robots. They're...unusual."

"I got them cheap from a concession on Alyria Seven. The robots did as best they could with my legs, but...you can help me so much more."

"Oh, a doctor Doctor, I see." He rubbed his hands together, breathing into them. "Let's have a look." He eyed the man's wounds.

"They chewed through part of the bone in my legs."

He nodded. "Yes. Very nasty."

"But you can repair them."

"If you tell me how you came by so many dinosaurs."

"Injure the older one."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "What?"

One of the robots turned and shot Brian's shoulder, making him collapse. Rory rushed to his side, Adelaide fixing Solomon with such a horrible look that the Doctor was fairly certain he was going to burst into flames on the spot.

"Dad! Dad, it's alright, dad, it's okay, it's okay."

 **A/N: Thought it was amusing to hint at jealousy between the Time Lords when they get attention from someone else. These two do seem to go through stages of cuteness and separation, don't they?**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: Sad, I know, but there is slow progress. Glad you're enjoying it!_


	4. Discoveries

**Discoveries**

Once the Doctor was certain Rory was helping his father, he turned back to Solomon, taking Adelaide's expression. "I don't respond well to violence, Solomon."

"And I don't like questions, Doctor. You boarded without my permission. Now, fix me, or the next bolt will be fatal."

Rory started working to heal his father's injury, the robots hovering around commenting. Adelaide stood near the gate, watching the Doctor work.

"How did you get on board, Doctor?" Solomon asked the Doctor as he got to work.

"Oh, I never talk about myself with a gun pointed at me. Let's talk about you. Your cozy little craft embedded in a vast old ship."

"You're very observant."

"Adelaide's far better at observation," he shrugged, "she's probably a Sagittarius."

"I'm transporting it to the Roxborne Peninsula."

The Doctor frowned. "A commerce colony. You're a trader."

"I search out opportunities for profit across nine galaxies."

He glanced back at the computer that had scanned him before. "Ah, the purple light. That's what it was. An IV system, identifying value. The database of everything across space and time allocated a market value. Argos for the universe. You were trying to find out how much I'm worth."

Solomon grinned. "Would you like to know?" He gestured towards the computer, making it process the information before it finally concluded on 'no identification found'. "You don't exist. It's never done that."

The Doctor shrugged. "That's me. Worthless. Unlike these creatures you have on board. Very valuable, given they're extinct." He leaned back. "Done. Sit up, very slowly."

Adelaide knocked on the gate, making the Doctor turn. "Amy has news," she told him, having taken the phone from Rory. "Silurians." She said the word in a random language she was counting on Solomon not knowing, given it hadn't been invented yet. "Thousands of empty stasis pods. They were looking for another planet."

He nodded. "Thank you. Be ready." He turned back to Solomon, who was now standing with a cane.

"The pain in my legs is gone," Solomon said. "I can move them. Thank you, Doctor."

"What did you do to the Silurians?"

"We ejected them," Solomon shrugged. "The robots woke them from cryosleep a handful at a time and jettisoned them from the airlocks. We must have left a trail of dust and bone."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes. "Because you wanted the dinosaurs."

"Their ship crossed my path. I sent out a distress signal, they let me board, and when I saw the cargo things became more complex."

He shook his head. "Piracy and then genocide."

"Very emotive words, Doctor."

"Oh, I'm a very emotive man."

"The lizards wouldn't negotiate. I made them a generous offer."

The Doctor scoffed. "The creatures on board this ship are not objects to be sold or traded."

"I feel like you're judging me."

"You said Roxborne Peninsula, so why are you heading to Earth? You're on the wrong course." He paused, working it out. "Oh, you don't know how. Brilliant. You couldn't change the pre-programmed course. Without instructions, the ship defaulted, returned home, oh dear. The Silurians outwitted you even after you'd massacred them, so now you're a prisoner of the ship you hijacked."

Solomon glared. "Not now you're here. You're going to help me go wherever I want to go, Doctor."

"Little bit of news, Solomon. You're being targeted by missiles. Get off this ship while you still can." He turned to leave the man.

"You think I believe that?" Solomon scoffed. "You just want them for yourself. You won't profit from me, Doctor."

"Don't ever judge me by your standards." The Doctor soniced the gate, letting him out. "Well, don't just stand there, Rory!" He turned to the robots. "Hey, he wants to see you." And then the Time Lord stalked off, Adelaide hurrying to match his pace. Rory, after helping his dad stand, followed them.

They managed to find the triceratops, who was still playing with the golf ball. "What are we doing?" Brian asked as the Time Lords exchanged a look.

"Just do exactly as I do!"

Rory's eyes widened. "Doctor, no!"

But the Doctor leaped onto the back of the dinosaur with a cheer of "Geronimo!" Once he was settled, he turned to pull Adelaide up, Brian and Rory managing to scramble up on their own. "Go, Tricy! Run like the wind!"

The dinosaur roared but didn't move, even when the robots started to fire lasers at them.

"Quick, how do you start a Triceratops?"

Adelaide held out a hand to Brian. "Golf ball." He gave her one, and she chucked it down the corridor. "Tricy, fetch!"

The dinosaur hurried after it, and the Doctor laughed. "Go, Tricy!" They heard the robots behind them. "Come on, Tricy, faster, baby!" The dinosaur turned a corner.

Brian shook his head, the dinosaur speeding up. "I'm riding a dinosaur on a spaceship!"

"I know!" The Doctor cheered.

"I only came round to fix your light!"

The Doctor pet the dinosaur, getting a bit nervous as they neared a dead end and the dinosaur didn't seem to be stopping. "Come on, Tricy. Where are the brakes?"

But as he said that, the dinosaur skid to a stop, making them all fall off. The dinosaur, finding the golf ball, dropped it in Adelaide's lap and walked off. She looked between it and the Doctor. "Honestly, bit surprised that worked."

"Oi! Where are we now?" He leaped up, spotting a monitor turning on over her shoulder. "Ooo, incoming message from Earth." Indira appeared, with Adelaide moving to stand next to him. "Hello, Earth, how's things?"

"Doctor, Adelaide, the ship's coming through the atmosphere. I have to start the missile program."

"No, no, no, no, don't do that! Everything's completely under control here! Turning round any moment. Need a bit of wriggle room on the timings."

Indira shook her head. "I can't do that."

"You can! Of course, you can. Tiny bit more time, Indira, please. This ship contains the most precious cargo."

"My only responsibility is the Earth's safety. I'm launching the missiles. Goodbye, Doctor, Adelaide." The monitor went off.

"No, Indira, hey! Come back! Please!"

Adelaide sighed. "Did you really think she would stop the missiles?" She asked him, and he stuck his tongue out at her.

|C-S|

Meanwhile, Amy and Nefertiti were looking through a computer while Riddell searched for a weapon. He opened a cupboard and cheered. "Now, these are what we need. Dinosaur protection." He pulled out a few of the rifles.

Amy glanced back. "No weapons." He handed her the magazine that went with it. "Anesthetic? These are stun guns. You're almost clever."

He smirked. "Enough to make a dinosaur take a nap. Even the Doctor and Adelaide couldn't object to that."

"Which of you is the Doctor's Queen?" Nefertiti asked Amy. "Adelaide or you?"

"I'm Rory's Queen...wife. Wife! I'm his wife. Please don't tell him I said I was his Queen. I'll never hear the end of it."

"But Adelaide?"

Amy paused. She, honestly, didn't know what to say about the Time Lords. But, seeing how the Time Lords reacted whenever anyone else tried to do anything close to flirting...she shrugged. "Not Queen, but...no, let's just say Queen. She's definitely his Queen." She frowned. "I thought you had a husband?"

"The male equivalent of a sleeping potion."

Riddell stepped forward. "You clearly need a man of action and excitement. One with a very large weapon."

"So, human sleeping potion or walking innuendo. Take your pick." Amy messed with the computer, finally managing to pull up an image of the four who'd teleported away. The Doctor was pacing.

"That's very bad indeed," he said. "Completely unhelpful."

Rory frowned at the computer, trying to make it work. "Doesn't the ship have any defense systems installed?"

"Good thinking, Rory!" The Doctor, coming over, kissed Rory before turning to the computer. "Computer, show us weapons and defense systems." The computer, as Adelaide had expected, showed 'no systems available'. "Oh, well, that was a waste of time, wasn't it? Getting my hopes up like that."

"What ship doesn't have weapons?"

Adelaide sighed. "The Silurians are an ancient species that are, for some reason, still full of hope."

"What about the control deck?" Brian offered. "You said we should go to the control deck next."

"It's too late." The Doctor turned away. "It won't make any difference."

"We could at least try."

"The missiles are locked on," Adelaide said. "It likely wouldn't work."

"So what, we're just giving up?"

"I don't know! I don't know."

There was a bright flash, and Solomon and the robots teleported in behind them. "You were telling the truth, Doctor," Solomon said, leaning on crutches. "Earth has launched missiles. This vessel is too clumsy to outrun them, but I have my own ship."

"You won't get your precious cargo on board, though. Just be you and your metal tantrum machines."

"We do not have tantrums!"

"Shut up!" Solomon snapped, walking forward. "You're right, Doctor. I can't keep the dinosaurs and live myself. But I had the IV system scan the entire ship and it found something even more valuable. Utterly unique. I don't know where you found it, or how you got it here, but I want it."

The Doctor clenched his fists. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Earth Queen Nefertiti of Egypt. A face stamped across history. Give her to me, and I'll let the rest of you live."

"No."

"You think I won't punish those who get in my way, whatever they're worth?" He nodded to the side, and one of the robots shot the triceratops.

Adelaide and the Doctor instantly went to the dinosaur's side, stroking it as it died. It wasn't even that Adelaide had any particular liking towards dinosaurs, but she had always hated a worthless death.

When the Doctor stood, he clapped mockingly. "You must be very proud."

Solomon didn't seem bothered. "Bring her to me, or the robots will make their way through your corpses. Bring her now."

"No." They were interrupted by another flash of light, and the other trio appeared. "What are you doing?"

Nefertiti stepped forward. "I demanded to be brought here."

"No, no, no, no, no way!" He grabbed her arm, trying to stop her.

She shook him off. "It isn't your choice, Doctor, it's mine."

"Listen to me, if you go with him, we can't guarantee your safety."

"You saved my people. I am in your debt."

Adelaide walked over. "No debts. You don't owe us anything."

She nodded. "Then I do it on my own."

"No, Neffy, Neffy."

Nefertiti walked towards Solomon, but Riddell pulled out his weapon. "No! Take her and I shoot you!"

Nefertiti held out a hand. "Put your weapon down. Let me make my choice."

Solomon nodded. "Do it, boy." Riddell, glaring, did so. "My bounty increases. And what extraordinary bounty you are." He made to touch her face, but Nefertiti swatted him away.

"Never touch me."

He grabbed her and shoved her against the wall, pressing one of his crutches against her throat. "I like my possessions to have spirit. It means I can have fun breaking them. And I will break you in with immense pleasure." Nefertiti shoved him back. "Thank you, Doctor. Computer, take us back to my ship." The group vanished in a flash of light, just as the alarms started.

"Hostile targeting in progress. Hostile targeting in progress. Hostile targeting in progress. Hostile targeting in progress."

The Doctor looked at Adelaide, grinning. "Bingo."

Rory's eyes widened. "What is it? Doctor?"

But the Time Lord just turned and soniced the computer, teleporting them to the control room. "Okay, control deck."

"So, what's the plan?"

The Doctor ran forward, starting to work on the controls. "Come on! The missiles are locked onto us. We can't out-run them. We have to save the dinosaurs and get Nefertiti back from Solomon. Isn't it obvious?"

Rory shook his head. "It's sort of the opposite of obvious."

"Seventeen minutes before the missiles hit," Adelaide reminded him. "We need to turn this ship around."

"He said it was too late. That there wasn't any time."

"Ah, yes, but I didn't have this plan then, did I?" He soniced one of the controls, opening it to look at the wiring.

"Riddell," Adelaide said, turning to the man. "Look out for dinosaurs."

The man grinned. "I was rather hoping you'd say that." He ran off.

"Don't kill any!" The man gave her a thumbs up. "Rory, Brian, get rid of the cobwebs."

The Doctor worked for a bit longer before hitting the computer in annoyance. "No, don't be like that! Really unhelpful."

"What's the matter?" Amy asked.

"Parallel pilot compartments, both configured. Needs two operator of the same gene-chain. And that's why Solomon couldn't change the ship's course."

Adelaide frowned. "I thought you knew that."

He turned to her. "You knew?"

"It's a Silurian ship, I assumed. I thought you were fixing it so that Brian and Rory could pilot."

His eyes widened. "Adelaide, you are wonderful!" He turned to Brian. "Come on, Brian Pond!"

The man shook his head. "I'm not a Pond."

"Course you are." He clapped the man on the shoulder. "Sit down, both of you, licketty split. The ship does all the engineering. The controls are straightforward, even a monkey could use them." He smirked at Adelaide's sigh as the men sat. "Oh look, they're going to." No one laughed. "Guys, come on, comedy gold!" He sighed. "Where's a Silurian audience when you need one? Anyway, two eye-line screens. Velocity and trajectories. Steer away from the Earth...try not to bump into the moon. Otherwise, the races who live there will be livid."

Brian paused. "What?"

"Primary controls in the arms of the chairs. Principle's the same as any vehicle." He glanced at his watch. "Eight minutes forty-five seconds." He soniced the chairs. "Get us as far away as you can." He rubbed his hands together, turning. "Right, phase two sorted. Now for phase one."

Amy frowned. "Phase two comes after phase one."

The Doctor waved a hand. "Humans, you're so linear." He walked back to the post. "Shine the torch in here."

Amy came over, with Adelaide staying near Rory and Brian to help if they needed directions. "What are you doing?" Amy asked the Time Lord.

"Mixing my messages." He glanced up at her as he worked. "How's the job?"

"We're about to be hit by missiles and you're asking me that?"

He shrugged. "Adelaide's made me more considerate, and I work best when I'm multitasking. Keep talking. How's the job?"

"I gave it up."

"You gave the last one up."

She shrugged. "Yeah, well, I can't settle. Every minute I'm listening out for that stupid TARDIS sound."

"Right, so it's our fault now, is it?"

"I can't not wait for you, even now. And they're getting longer, you know, the gaps between your visits. I think you're weaning us off you."

"We're not, I promise. Really promise. The others, yeah, but not you. Rory and you...you have lives, have each other." He frowned. "I thought that's what we agreed."

"I know. I just worry there'll come a time when you never turn up. That something will have happened to you and I'll still be waiting, never knowing."

He grinned. "No, come on, Pond. You'll be there to the end of me."

"Or vice versa."

His face fell. "Don't."

"Adelaide?" Riddell called. "This is a two-man job." Amy walked over, grabbing the other weapon. "What are you doing?"

"I'm easily worth two men." She smirked. "You can help too, if you like."

The Doctor finally pulled out a device from the wiring, giving Adelaide a look before teleporting away.

Brian laughed. "I'm flying a spaceship...Rory!"

"Hmm?"

"We're flying a spaceship!"

Rory laughed. "I know!"

Even Adelaide laughed. "I'm honestly quite impressed."

They were actually moving the ship away from Earth. "Here we go! That's it, that's it, that's it, that's it. Yes, yes, it's better than golf."

|C-S|

Meanwhile, the Doctor teleported to Solomon's ship, which had yet to actually leave. "Hello! Having trouble leaving?" When the robots moved, he shorted them out with a pair of power cables he'd grabbed. "Ship's still magnetized, just couldn't bear to lose you."

Solomon glared at him, grabbing Nefertiti again. "Release my ship, Doctor, or I kill this precious little object."

However, Nefertiti was not going to stand there for that. She kicked Solomon's crutch, making him fall, and pressed it to his neck. "I am not your possession now, nor will I ever be. Now, stay there."

The Doctor laughed. "Don't mess with Egyptian Queens, Solomon. I hoped you've learned that now." He went to the controls.

"What are you doing?"

"Disabling this ship's signal and replacing it with the one from the Silurian ship. I send this craft off emitting the signal they're looking for, the missiles will follow. Hopefully, Silurian ship safe, dinosaurs safe, everybody safe. Bit tight for time, though. Shouldn't really be chatting. Neffy, let's go." The woman walked to stand by his side. "How remiss of me, almost forgot. The thing about missiles, very literal. This is what they latch onto." He held up the device he'd found in the post. "Now, one press of this and the ship's demagnetized."

"Doctor, whatever you want, I can get it for you," Solomon tried. "Whatever object you desire."

The Doctor stiffened. He knew for a fact that there was no way Solomon could get him anything he wanted, especially one particular thing. "Did the Silurians beg you to stop?" He pointed to the small window. "Look, Solomon, the missiles. See them shine? See how valuable they are. And they're all yours."

"You wouldn't leave me, Doctor."

He dropped the device into the main controls. "Enjoy your bounty." He and Nefertiti teleported away, arriving back in the control room just as Brian and Rory managed to get the Silurian ship just the right distance away as the missiles hit Solomon.

|C-S|

The Doctor kept turning in a circle as they walked back to the TARDIS, quite happy. Adelaide watched him with a smile, letting him spin her in a circle whenever he wanted. They had just managed to save a ship full of dinosaurs, that was quite an achievement.

"So, dinosaur drop off time!" The Doctor said, pulling out his key as they neared the TARDIS.

"Actually," Rory said, glancing at Amy, "we think home for us."

"Oh." The Doctor's face fell. "Fine. Of course."

"Not forever," Amy told him, not certain how Adelaide felt as the Time Lady was much better at not revealing her emotions. "Just a couple of months."

"Right. Yes. We're pretty busy anyway. I mean, we've got to drop everyone back."

Brian held up a hand. "About that. Can I ask a favor? There's something I want to see."

|C-S|

It turns out that what Brian wanted from the Time Lords was to sit in the doorway of the TARDIS watching the planet and stars below. Adelaide and the Doctor stood at the console, watching.

"I used to do that," Adelaide said quietly, crossing her arms. "If I needed to read something."

He frowned. "You've been here for over a century and I've never seen you do that."

She raised her eyebrows. "I do a lot of stuff you haven't seen, Doctor, and I would assume the same was true about you."

After a minute, they both smiled, and the stars shone a bit brighter.

 **A/N: It seems the Time Lords might still be Aligned after all ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: Glad you're enjoying it!_


	5. Alien Doctors

**Alien Doctors**

The Doctor was quite happy as he took in the desert town before them. And it was mostly due to the fact Adelaide was standing next to him, sweater off, in a rather tight pair of pants and shirt.

He may find her mind brilliant, but that didn't mean he didn't also find her quite aesthetically attractive. This regeneration was older then her previous, but that didn't make her any less beautiful, not to him.

It occurred to him that he had never told her that. Even during those few months when they truly hadn't cared about anything except each other, he'd never told her. Thought it, loads of times, any time he looked at her. But he'd never told her.

And now it was too late.

"'Mercy'," Adelaide read off, spotting the sign in front of them. It listed the residents as 81, though the previous 80 looked recently crossed out. "Eighty-one residents."

"Look at this," Amy called, pointing at the ring of stone and wood that encircled the town. "It's a load of stones and lumps of wood. What is it?"

The Doctor soniced it. "A load of stones and lumps of wood." He walked forward.

"The sign says 'Keep Out'," Adelaide reminded him.

He spun. "I see Keep Out signs as suggestions more than actual orders, like Dry Clean Only." He held out a hand and Adelaide, sighing, took it and let him walk backward into the town. The humans, shaking their heads at the Time Lords, followed. They all stopped when the Doctor and Adelaide, in unison, spotted the streetlamp. "That's not right." The Doctor scanned it with his sonic.

"It's a streetlamp," Rory told them, frowning.

"An electric street lamp about ten years too early."

Rory shrugged. "It's only a few years out."

"That's what you said when you left your phone charger in Henry the Eighth's en-suite!"

"Doctor..." Amy said, noticing the fact everyone in the town seemed to be staring at them.

"Anachronistic electricity, Keep Out signs, aggressive stares." The Doctor rubbed his hands together, turning to Adelaide. "Has someone been peeking at my Christmas list?"

She sighed. "You were the one who piloted us here," she reminded him.

He smirked, pulled a toothpick from his pocket, stuck it in his teeth, and led the way to the saloon. The Time Lord walked right up to the bar, not seeming to notice how quiet everyone in the room got once they walked inside. "Tea," he ordered, leaning against the bar. "But the strong stuff. Leave the bag in." He attempted a trick with the toothpick but ended up stabbing himself in the mouth, nearly choking.

Adelaide closed her eyes for a second at that, sighing.

"What're you doing here, son?" The woman behind the bar eyed the Doctor.

"Son?" He laughed. "You can stay."

Another man behind them stood. "Sir, might I inquire who you is?"

He plucked the toothpick out. "Of course. I'm the Doctor, this is..." He was interrupted by everyone in the room standing. "No need to stand." He turned to Adelaide. "Look, manners!" A man came up to the Doctor, beginning to measure him. "Oh, thank you, but I don't need a new suit."

"I'm the undertaker, sir."

A different young man, looking uneasy, stepped forward. "I got a question. Is you an alien?"

"Well, er, bit personal. It's all relative, isn't it? I mean, I think you're the aliens, but in this context, yes, yes, I suppose I am."

Without speaking, the men rushed forward, lifting up the Doctor and carrying him outside. Adelaide was honestly too shocked to move, not even when the mob dragged her and the humans after him.

"Doctor!" Amy shouted. "Put him down!"

"Don't think we won't kill you," the woman pointed at her.

"Leave him alone!"

"Rory, everything is completely under control," the Doctor tried. "Guys, guys, guys..." The mob threw him over the line and out of the town. "Ow!" He leaped up, cracking his back, but when he turned everyone pointed their weapons at him.

Adelaide, finally stepping forward, frowned at a man who appeared to be teleporting closer in small jumps. "He's coming," the first man breathed. "Oh God, he's coming."

"Preacher," the younger man said, "say something."

"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." The mysterious figure was closer now, the drawn weapons making it clear the Doctor was not going to be allowed back into the city.

Everyone jumped when someone in the crowd fired their gun. Given the silver star on his chest, he was the Marshal. "You, bowtie, get back across that line." He tapped the star. "Now."

The Doctor did as he said, and the figure vanished again.

"Isaac," the young man said, turning to him, "he said he was a doctor. An alien doctor."

"That a reason to hand him to his death?"

"Isaac, it could be him!"

"You know it ain't." Isaac walked away, nodding at Amy and Adelaide as he passed them. "Ma'ams."

The group of time travelers followed him, despite the hecklers behind them. They entered the marshal's office. "What was that outside?" The Doctor asked, jerking a thumb behind them.

"The Gunslinger," Isaac said, sitting on the edge of his desk. "Showed up three weeks back. We've been prisoners ever since. See that borderline stretching round the town? Woke up one morning, there it was. Nothing gets past it, in or out. No supply wagons, no reinforcements. Pretty soon the whole town's going to starve to death."

"But you let us in?" Rory asked.

Adelaide nodded. "We don't have food or weapons, just more mouths to feed."

"What happens if someone crosses the line?"

Isaac threw the Doctor a Stetson and the Time Lord put his hand through a bullet hole. "Ah, well, he wasn't a very good shot, then."

"He was aiming for the hat."

"He shoots people's hats?"

"It was a warning shot," Amy told him.

"Ah, no, yes, I see. Hmm."

"What does he want?" Amy turned to Isaac. "Has he issued some kind of demand?"

"Says he wants us to give him the alien doctor."

Amy looked to the Doctor. "But that's you. Why would he want to kill you? Unless he's met you."

"And how could he know that we'd be here," Rory added. "We didn't even know we'd be here."

Amy nodded. "We were aiming for Mexico. The Doctor and Adelaide were taking us to see the Day of the Dead Festival."

Isaac frowned at them. "Mexico's two hundred miles due South."

Adelaide sighed. "That's what happens when someone" she gave the Doctor a pointed look "gets toast crumbs on the console and doesn't tell me."

"It wasn't me!"

She just shook her head, looking back to Isaac. "Where's the other alien doctor?" The man looked shocked she'd known there was another. "You knew the Doctor wasn't the alien doctor that Gunslinger was looking for, so one must assume you already know who it is...resident eighty-one, I would guess. Likely the one who gave you the electrics, but he's likely in here to keep the town from throwing him to his death."

The Doctor grinned. "Two alien doctors; we're like buses!"

Isaac shook his head. "I don't know what you..."

But he was interrupted by a voice from the cell to the side of the room. "Isaac, I think the time for subterfuge has passed." He stood from the cot, letting them see the tattoo on his face. "Good afternoon. My name is Kahler-Jex. I'm the doctor."

Immediately, the Doctor soniced the cell open, rushing forward to enthusiastically shake his hand. "The Kahler! I love the Kahler! They're one of the most ingenious races in the galaxy. Seriously. They could build a spaceship out of Tupperware and moss."

"Alright," Amy said, exchanging a look with Adelaide and trying not to laugh. "How did you get here?"

"My craft crashed about a mile or so out of town. I would have died if Isaac and the others hadn't pulled me from the wreckage."

"And you stayed as their doctor."

Jex nodded. "On my world, I was a surgeon, so it seemed logical. And it gave me an opportunity to repay my debt to them."

Isaac shook his head. "Listen to him, talking like it was nothing. Tell them about the cholera." He clapped Jex on the back.

"Now, Isaac, I'm sure our guests are..."

"Two years after he arrived, there was an outbreak of cholera. Thanks to the doc here, not a single person died."

Jex shrugged. "A minor infection we'd found a treatment for centuries ago."

"No, no, what did you call them? The 'lectrics?"

"Using my ship as a generator, I was able to rig up some rudimentary heating and lighting for the town."

The Doctor frowned. "So why does the Gunslinger want you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'm just saying, if we knew that..."

"America's the land of second chances," Isaac said sharply. "We called this town Mercy for a reason. Others, some round here, don't feel that way."

Jex held up a hand. "Now, Isaac, we've discussed this."

"People whose lives you've saved are suddenly saying we should hand you over!"

"They're scared, that's all. You can hardly blame them."

"Them being scared scares me." Isaac looked to the Time Lords. "War only ended five years back. That old violence is still under the surface. We give up Doc Jex, then we hand the keys of the town over to chaos."

Adelaide studied Jex. "Did you try to repair your craft?"

"It was really badly damaged."

The Doctor nodded. "We evacuate the town. Our ship's just over the hills, room for everyone. I'll..." He spotted Adelaide giving him a look "...we'll pop out, bring it back here, Robert's your uncle."

Amy paused. "Really? Simple as that? No crazy schemes, no negotiations?"

"I've matured. I'm 1200 years old now. Plus, I don't want to miss The Archers."

Amy smirked. "Oh, so you're not even a tiny bit curious?"

He put on the hat. "Why would I be curious? It's a mysterious space cowboy assassin. Curious? Of course I'm not curious." The Time Lords stepped outside.

"Son?" Isaac called. "You've still got to get past the Gunslinger. How you going to do that?"

"With a little sleight of hand."

|C-S|

The Time Lords hurried towards the only horse they saw in the town. Neither really liked the fact that the plan involved Isaac and Rory distracting the Gunslinger as the Time Lords went to a ship, but Adelaide had reassured the Doctor with the fact that all signs pointed towards the Gunslinger being unwilling to hurt civilians.

"May we borrow your horse, please?" Adelaide asked the preacher, though the Doctor was already grabbing the reins. "It's official marshal business." Without waiting, the Doctor swung himself up, holding out his hands to help Adelaide up. There were no other horses in the town, not that the Doctor was complaining about Adelaide being that close to him.

And not that Adelaide was complaining either though, of course, neither knew how the other felt.

"He's called Joshua," the preacher told them. "It's from the Bible. It means 'the Deliverer'."

The horse neighed. "No, he isn't," the Doctor said. "We speak horse. He's called Susan, and he wants you to respect his life choices."

Before the preacher could say anything, they galloped out of town, both Time Lords laughing as they built up speed.

Eventually, Adelaide tapped the Doctor's shoulder, making him slow the horse. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." The horse neighed as Adelaide slid off. "Yes, I know we're in a hurry, but she wants to check something out. Two ticks." He hopped off too. "Yes, it could be important."

Adelaide frowned at Susan when the horse whinnied. "Don't swear."

The Doctor pointed at Susan. "You don't want her mad at you!" She pulled a cable from the dust. "Ooo, shiny." They climbed back onto the horse, following the wire towards a large object covered with a tarp. "Whoa, whoa, whoa." He dismounted first that time, stepping aside so that Adelaide could do the same. "Yes, I wear a Stetson now." They pulled the tarp off the object, revealing something the Doctor recognized as Jex's ship. "Yes, good point, Susan. Where's the damage?"

He climbed onto the ship, feeling around for an entrance until Adelaide soniced it, making the door open but an alarm go off. He slid into the ship and Adelaide did the same, though the Doctor quickly soniced the lights so it was much brighter inside the small pod.

"Security breach. You have ten seconds to enter the passcode." The Doctor started frantically sonicing the controls to make it stop. "Or this vehicle will self-destruct. Thank you for choosing Abarakas Security software. Incinerating intruders for three centuries...nine, eight, seven..." He finally found the right thing to sonic. "Self-destruct overridden."

Adelaide frowned. "Quite a bit of security for this size of ship."

He glanced at her. "Wait...you're not upset that we broke in?"

"The Gunslinger is a Kahler." She gestured at her face to indicate the tattoo Jex had. "I would like to know what's going on." He grinned.

"Awaiting command," the computer said.

"Tell us everything you can about the Gunslinger."

"File not found. Please choose from: Technical Specifications, Flight Recorder, Personal Files, Maps and Charts."

Adelaide nodded. "Personal files of Doctor Kahler-Jex."

The Time Lords' eyes widened as they watched the images scroll past them, informing them exactly what type of man Jex was.

|C-S|

Adelaide popped out of the ship, angry now. Jex had been a member of a group of scientists, the Kahler had been at war, and they'd...they'd done terrible things. She understood being asked to do terrible things to save your people, she'd been asked to do terrible things, but she hadn't done them. The Doctor hadn't done them.

They knew the difficulties of war, but it was because of people like Jex that they'd abandoned their people.

But Jex...Jex had been asked to destroy lives in order to save his people. He'd accepted where Adelaide had refused.

However, just as she moved to climb out, something clicked behind her. She held up her hands, giving the Doctor a look as the man looked absolutely terrified that she'd be shot again. "Don't shoot." She turned to face the Gunslinger. "We know who you and Jex are." The Gunslinger lowered his weapon and Adelaide moved to the side to let the Doctor pop out of the opening too.

"Now, what I don't understand is why you haven't just walked into town and killed him," the Doctor asked him.

"People will get in the way."

The Doctor nodded. "You want justice, you deserve justice, but this isn't the way. We can put him on trial-"

"When he starts killing your people, you can use your justice. No more warning shots. I'll kill the next person to step over that line. Make sure it's Jex."

 **A/N: Uh oh, Adelaide's getting angry. This whole episode is an interesting one for our two Time Lords ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Arkytior's Song: Glad you've enjoyed the whole story! Always made me smile when I'd see that you'd finished another part in the series :)_


	6. Alien Judgement

**Alien Judgement**

The Time Lords returned to the marshal office and were surprised to find Isaac, Rory, and Amy standing before Jex. "It was stupid of me," Jex said, "I realize that now. I just thought I'd put you all in enough danger. Perhaps if I left..."

"He's lying," the Doctor called. "Every word, everything he says, it's all lies. This man is a murderer."

"I am a scientist!"

"Sit down," the Doctor snapped. "Sit down!" Jex did as he said. "Tell them what you are."

"What am I? A war hero."

Isaac shook his head. "Okay, somebody want to tell me what is going on?"

"The Gunslinger is a Cyborg."

"A what?"

"Half man, half machine. A weapon. Jex built it."

Adelaide nodded. "He and his team took volunteers and experimented on them. They told the volunteers they'd been selected for special training and then they fused their body with weaponry and programmed them to kill."

Isaac's eyes widened, and he turned to Jex in shock. "Okay...why? Why would you do that, doc?"

"We'd been at war for nine years. A war that had already decimated half of our planet. Our task was to bring peace and we did. We built an army that routed the enemy and ended the war in less than a week. Do you want me to repent, to beg forgiveness for saving millions of lives?"

"And how many died screaming on the operating table before you had found your advantage?" Adelaide asked.

"War is another world. You cannot apply the politics of peace to what I did. To what any of us did."

Rory stepped forward, speaking in the pause as the Doctor literally had to take Adelaide's shoulder to stop her from attacking Jex, which she looked like she was about to do. "What happened then? How come you're here?"

"When the war ended we had the Cyborgs decommissioned, but one of them must have got its circuitry damaged in battle. It went offline and began hunting down the team that created it until just two of us were left. We fled, and our ships crashed here."

"So, what do we do with Jex?"

Isaac's eyes widened. "What do we do with him?"

"Yeah, I mean, he's a war criminal."

"No, he's the guy that saved the town from cholera, the guy that gave us heat and light."

Amy held up a hand. "Look, Jex may be a criminal and yeah, kind of creepy..."

"And still in the room."

"...but I think we should put aside what he did and find another solution."

"Another solution?" Rory asked. "It's him or us."

"When did we start letting people get executed? Did I miss a memo?" Amy turned to the Time Lords. The Doctor had turned away, looking out the window, while Adelaide had controlled her expression into something that showed no sign of the anger inside. "Doctor, Adelaide, tell him."

The Doctor looked up, clearly not having been paying attention. "Hmm? Yes...I don't know...whatever Amy said."

Jex shook his head at the Time Lords. "Looking at you two, Doctor and Adelaide, is like looking into a mirror. Almost. There's rage there, like me. Guilt, like me. Solitude. Everything but the nerve to do what needs to be done. Thank the gods my people weren't relying on you to save them."

The Doctor lunched forward, grabbing Jex's shirt. "No. No, but these people are!" He shoved him towards the door. "Out! Out! Out!"

Adelaide had to close her eyes before following, taking a deep breath. She hated Jex, she did, she detested him, but...she had to remember to keep her emotions separate from her decisions. She couldn't fall prey to the difficulties of her previous regeneration.

She'd regenerated, she was supposed to be different. Better. Back to normal. She was supposed to be able to keep a handle on this situation.

"No!" The Doctor shouted out the window and Adelaide hurried to follow him. He shoved Jex across the town line. "Get over, and don't come back!" He pulled a gun from a nearby man's holster and pointed it at Jex when he tried to come back.

Jex held up his hands. "You wouldn't."

The Time Lord tightened his grip. "I genuinely don't know."

Adelaide pointed at Amy and the human grabbed another gun, firing it into the air. Everyone turned to Amy in shock and Adelaide walked to stand between the Doctor and Jex. "Let him come back, Doctor."

"How can you say that?" He looked as though she'd abandoned him.

"I am not going to stand by and watch you make a decision in anger," Adelaide told him. "I broke through a Chameleon Arch to stop you on Mars and I am going to stop you now."

"This isn't like Mars."

"Is this like the Starwhale, then? You get blinded by anger, Doctor."

A gunshot went off and everyone turned to see Amy looking at the gun like it had betrayed her. "I didn't mean to do that!" she told them.

"Okay," Isaac said, "everyone who isn't an American, drop your gun."

Amy did so, but the Doctor stepped forward to speak to Adelaide privately. "We can end this right now. We could save everyone right now."

"And you would feel guilty for the rest of your life. Violence doesn't end violence."

"Jex has to answer for his crimes."

She raised her eyebrows. "I don't deny that, but I will not let you be the one who kills him."

"But they keep coming back, don't you see? Every time I negotiate, I try to understand...well, not today. No. Today, I honor the victims first. His, the Master's, the Dalek's, all the people who died because of my mercy!"

"Mars," she repeated. "Lower the gun and let Jex into the town."

"How is this logical?"

She stepped even closer. "The Gunslinger is a lone vigilante. Jex..." Her voice broke and the Doctor suddenly had the sense of how difficult this currently was for her "he was doing what his planet demanded of him in war."

The Doctor studied her face for a moment longer before finally lowering the gun.

During the war, she'd nearly been forced to sacrifice any decency she'd had left to protect Gallifrey. If she'd liked their planet at all, she likely would have done as Jex did, she likely would have sacrificed any races that were indebted to her to save their people. The only reason she hadn't had been because she'd hated the Time Lords.

But Jex had loved his people. He'd wanted to protect them.

"Jex, move over the line," Adelaide said, turning, but the Gunslinger had already arrived. "Now."

Jex turned to face the Gunslinger. "Make peace with your gods," the Gunslinger told him, holding his weapon up to Jex's head.

"Kahler-Tek, isn't it?" Jex asked him. "I remember all your names, even now. I'll never hurt anyone again. I'm even helping people here."

"Last chance. Make peace with your gods."

"No!" Isaac called as the Gunslinger powered up his weapon. He ran forward and pushed Jex out of the way, letting himself get shot instead.

The Doctor ran forward, scanning the wound. "Isaac, Isaac, Isaac...it's okay, it's okay. We can get you to Jex's surgery. He can save you."

Isaac grabbed the Doctor's arm, stopping him from moving. "Listen to me. You've got to stay. You've got to look after everyone."

"It won't come to that, Issac."

"Protect Jex. Protect my town." He looked over the Doctor's shoulder at Adelaide too. "You're all good men, you just forget it sometimes." He pressed something into the Doctor's hand as he died.

The Doctor straightened, pinning the badge to his jacket. "Take Jex to his cell," he ordered. "If anything happens to him, you'll have me to answer to." A few men took Jex away, and the Doctor looked to the Gunslinger. "This has gone on long enough."

"You are right. You've got until noon tomorrow. Give him to me or I'll kill you all." He vanished.

|C-S|

The Doctor and Adelaide stood facing each other, arms crossed and breathing hard, in the marshal's office. They had recently finished having a shouting match about the fact she had forced him to let Jex live...but it had regressed into a shouting match about how logical she was and how emotional he was.

And then it had come to an abrupt stop when one of them brought up their relationship.

Or lack thereof.

It had been a scathing remark, something thrown in the midst of mutual anger, but it had silenced them both immediately.

They both knew that disagreements were healthy for any sort of relationship...and they certainly felt less angry at the moment.

But what they really needed, what they both knew, was to have an actual conversation instead of shouting about it. Sadly, they both didn't have the time for that at the moment and didn't want to, as neither Time Lord was particularly fond of having conversations about themselves with each other.

They'd had the whole argument in Gallifreyan so that no one in the town could understand them, but Jex had sat watching them silently the whole time, unable to find a new place to put him before the argument had begun.

There were a few minutes of silence before someone hammered on the door.

"Come in," the Doctor called and the preacher cautiously stepped inside. The town may not have understood what the Time Lords had been saying, but they'd understood the anger. They knew to be cautious.

"Marshal," he nodded, "Ma'am. You need to come outside."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Just come outside. And you should put that on." The preacher nodded at a gun belt and left the room. Adelaide followed almost immediately, but it took the Doctor a second longer.

Amy and Rory stood on the porch of the office, looking down at the townspeople who'd gathered. "What's going on?" The Doctor asked them all.

"He in there?" The young man from before asked the Doctor. "Leave the keys and take a walk. By the time you get back, this'll all be done."

The Doctor shook his head. "I promised Isaac I'd protect him."

"Protecting him got Isaac dead. Tomorrow, it's going to be us all, dead."

"We thought Isaac was right to fight," a second man said, "but it's different now. We've got to say, 'alright, we lost', and give that thing what it wants."

"What it wants is to kill our friend!" The bartender said.

"We don't got any ill feeling towards the doc. We just think about our families. Hand him over and we all safe again."

"You know I can't do that."

The young man shrugged. "We got us a problem." He pushed his coat back, showing them his gun.

The Doctor held out a hand. "Please don't do this."

"Why, reckon you're quicker than me?"

"Oh, certainly not, but this?" he gestured at the crowd. "Lynch mobs? A town turning against itself? This is everything Isaac didn't want." The young man pulled out his gun. "How old are you?"

"Nearly nineteen."

The Doctor started to walk down the stairs, moving slowly so that he didn't end up startling the man into firing. "That's eighteen, then. Too young to have fought in the war, so I'm guessing you've never shot anyone before, have you?"

He cocked the gun. "First time for everything."

"But that's how all this started. Jex turned someone into a weapon. Now that same story's going to make you a killer, too. Don't you see? Violence doesn't end violence, it extends it, and I don't think you want to do this. I don't think you want to become that man."

"There's kids here."

He nodded. "I know, who I can save if you'll let me."

"He really worth the risk?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Don't know. But you are."

The young man lowered his gun, walking away as the townspeople drifted away, leaving the time travelers alone in the center of the town. "Frightened people," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Give me a Dalek any day."

"At least they're not on a bus," Adelaide murmured.

The Doctor nodded, agreeing, and walked back into the marshal office. Adelaide joined him again; she wasn't going to leave him alone with Jex.

The undertaker stepped up to him, holding out a cup. "Fresh coffee, marshal. For what it's worth, I know you're going to save us. Isaac made you marshal for a reason, and if you're good enough for him, you're good enough for me. Reckon you should know that."

The Doctor nodded, toasting the cup. "Thank you." The undertaker started to measure his shoulders again. "Oi, get out of it." The man left, shrugging.

"Let me guess," Jex called once the three were alone again. "The good folk of Mercy wanted me to take a little stroll into the desert. You could turn a blind eye, no one would blame you. You'd be a hero."

"But I can't, can I?" The Doctor walked up to the cell, Adelaide watching him carefully. "Because then Isaac's death would mean nothing. Just another casualty in your endless, bloody war! Do you want me to hand you over? Is that what you want? Do you even know?"

Jex glared at him. "You think I'm unaffected by what I did? That I don't hear them screaming every time I close my eyes? It would be so much simpler if I was just one thing, wouldn't it? The mad scientist who made that killing machine, or the physician who's dedicated his life to serving this time. The fact that I'm both bewilders you both."

The Doctor scoffed. "Oh, I know exactly what you are, and we" he nodded at Adelaide "see this reformation for what it really is. You committed an atrocity and chose this as your punishment. Don't get me wrong, good choice. Civilized hours, lots of adulation, nice weather, but...but justice doesn't work like that. You don't get to decide when and how your debt is paid!"

Jex straightened from his position of leaning forward. "In my culture, we believe that when you die your spirit has to climb a mountain carrying the souls of everyone you wronged in your lifetime. Imagine the weight I will have to lift. The monsters I created, the people they killed...Isaac, he was my friend. Now his soul will be in my arms, too." The Time Lords looked at him. "Can you see now why I fear death? You want to hand me over. There's no shame in that. But you won't." He looked between the Time Lords. "We all carry our prisons with us. Mine is my past. Yours is your mortality."

"'We all carry our prisons with us'," the Doctor repeated, scoffing. "Ha!"

|C-S|

The next day, the Time Lords stood before the bank with the clock tower striking noon, waiting for the Gunslinger.

They could hear the displacement from the Gunslinger arriving, but the Time Lords didn't move as the Gunslinger approached. Both sides paused for a moment, watching the other, before both raised their weapons. Immediately, the Doctor used his sonic to emit a loud screech, making the Gunslinger cover his ears as various bits of glass shattered.

The Time Lords ran for cover as the Gunslinger started to fire, Adelaide starting to paint something close to Jex's tattoo on his face. Other men from the town had similar marks; their goal was to distract the Gunslinger enough that Jex could return to his ship, taking the Gunslinger with him. She was only halfway done when there was an explosion and a scream.

They ran back and nearly collided with Jex. "Go!" The Doctor ordered. "Just go! We can't save them while you're here!" Jex ran, and the Time Lords hurried to where the Gunslinger had gone.

The man had turned away from the chapel where the other women and children were hiding, but now looked prepared to start firing again, so Adelaide stepped out.

"Where is he?" The Gunslinger asked, aiming his gun at her.

"He's left."

"Where? Answer me!"

"Away." She kept her voice as calm as she could. "Any moment now, there'll be a vapor trail of his ship in the sky. This planet, this town, is their home, not the backdrop for your revenge. Take this battle away..."

She was cut off by a high-pitched feedback from the streetlamps. "Kahler-Tek," Jex called. "Kahler-Tek."

The Gunslinger looked up. "Jex...coward! Where are you?"

"I'm in my ship."

"What are you doing?" The Doctor shouted, stepping around a corner. "Just go!"

"Where are you from? Where on Kahler?"

Adelaide actually scoffed. "Is now the appropriate time to ask that?"

"Gabriah."

"I know it. It's beautiful there," Jex sighed. "When this is over, will you go back?"

"How can I? I am a monster now."

"So am I."

"Just go!" The Doctor shouted. "Finish this!"

"I'll find you," the Gunslinger told him. "If I have to tear this universe apart, I will find you."

"I don't doubt that. You'll chase me to another planet, and another race will be caught in the cross-fire."

"Face me! Face me!"

"No. You've killed enough. I'm ending the war for you, too."

The Time Lords looked at each other, both hearing the countdown in the background. "What's going on? Jex!"

"Thank you," Jex said to them. "I have to face the souls I've wronged. Perhaps they will be kind."

Four seconds later, they heard the explosion in the distance, watched the smoke rise up behind the buildings. The Gunslinger bowed his head at the sight. "He behaved with honor at the end. Maybe more than me."

Adelaide watched him. "We can take you back to your world, you could help with the reconstruction."

He shook his head. "I will walk into the desert and self-destruct. I'm a creature of war. I have no role to play during peace." He turned and started to walk away.

"Except maybe to protect it," the Doctor called, making the Gunslinger stop and look back at them.

|C-S|

The Time Lords were actually grinning as they walked towards the TARDIS. After setting the Gunslinger up as a marshal for Mercy, they'd apologized to each other for the argument from earlier. They hadn't had a conversation about it as now wasn't really the time, not in a random American town, but they'd apologized.

When their companions saw them again, the Ponds exchanged smirks.

"Okay!" The Doctor cheered, spinning Adelaide in a circle. "So, our next trip! Oh! You know all the monkeys and dogs they sent into space in the fifties and sixties? You'll never guess what really happened to them."

Amy crossed her arms, leaning against the TARDIS door to stop him from opening it when he spun to do so. "Could we leave it a while? Our friends are going to start noticing that we're aging faster than them."

He nodded. "Another time? No worry." He pulled Adelaide into the TARDIS.

They weren't yet at the point that they would run off to...kiss, only kiss...but that didn't mean they didn't want to.

 **A/N: These Time Lords can never decide how they feel about each other, can they?**

 **So sorry there were no chapters last week. I hit finals season and completely lost track of formal week structure for a bit there.**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Arkytior's Song: Always gotta have those little nods ;)_


	7. Impatience

**Impatience**

Due to Adelaide managing to set the TARDIS to recognize strange news stories from Earth - something she used to do on her TARDIS before the war, though not specifically for Earth - whenever they got particularly bored, the Time Lords would sit and scroll through the Pond's relative time until something took their fancy.

This time, the thing in question was 'the invasion of black cubes'. Apparently, small black cubes had appeared globally at the exact same time.

Thus, the Time Lords brought the TARDIS to the small park across from Amy and Rory's home, as Adelaide had refused to let the Doctor just bring the TARDIS into the humans' home. Now, the Doctor sat at the top of the climbing frame examining one while Adelaide swung on a swing looking at another.

They both looked up when Amy called for them. "Doctor! Adelaide!"

The Doctor tossed up his cube. "Invasion of the very small cubes. That's new."

"I like it," Adelaide said. "A mystery."

|C-S|

Adelaide studied one of the cubes with a magnifying glass while the Doctor used the TARDIS to do some scans, their human companions watching them. "All absolutely identical," Adelaide mumbled.

The Doctor nodded. "Not a single molecule's difference between them."

"No blemishes, imperfections, individualities."

"What if they're bombs?" Brian asked. "Billions of tiny bombs? Or transport capsules maybe, with a mini robot inside? Or deadly hard drives? Or alien eggs? Or messages needing decoding? Or they're all parts of a bigger whole, jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together..."

"Very thorough, Brian," the Doctor cut in. "Very, very thorough. Well done. Stay here. Watch these." He gave him the cube he'd been studying, turning back to the console. "Yell if anything happens."

"Is this an alien invasion?" Amy asked the Time Lords, Adelaide giving the Doctor her cube. "Because that's what it feels like."

Rory nodded. "There couldn't be life-forms in every cube, could there?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't know. And I really don't like not knowing."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows, mumbling to herself. "That has certainly changed between regenerations." He glanced at her. "Distant memories of Pompeii. Something about seeds."

The Doctor looked away from her, both of them realizing that now was not the moment to have the discussion that statement would warrant, moving towards the door of the TARDIS and walking into the Pond's kitchen. "Right, we need to use your kitchen as a lab. Cook up some cubes. See what happens."

The Ponds moved so that they stood side by side in their kitchen, Adelaide moving past them to start clearing a space for her and the Doctor to use. Rory glanced at his watch. "Right, I'm due at work."

"What?" The Doctor paused, looking at him. "You've got a job?"

Rory nodded. "Of course I've got a job. What do you think we do when we're not with the two of you?"

He shrugged. "I imagined mostly kissing."

Amy sighed. "I write travel articles for magazines and Rory heals the sick."

"My shift starts in an hour." Rory turns to Amy. "Do you know where my scrubs are?"

"In the lounge, where you left them."

The Doctor watched him leave with a strange smile on his face. "All the Ponds, with their house and their jobs and their everyday lives. The journalist and the nurse. Long way from Leadworth." He bent down and began to mess with a few wires and bits of technology. Adelaide leaned down so that she was at eye level with a cube, attempting to determine the best way of starting to examine it properly.

Amy came to stand on the other side of the counter, watching as the Time Lords stood side by side. "We think it's been ten years. Not for you or Earth, but for us. Ten years older. Ten years of you, on and off."

"Look at you now." The Doctor grinned. "All grown up now."

He was interrupted by a loud bang as the front door was smashed open and armed soldiers ran into the room. "Clear!" One said into a comm. "Trap One, kitchen secured."

"Trap Three, back garden secured," someone responded.

Rory was marched in at gunpoint, still half-dressed. "There are soldiers all over my house, and I'm in my pants." He gestured at his bottom half.

"My whole life I've dreamed of saying that," Amy sighed, "and I miss it by being someone else."

A blonde woman stepped into the room. "All these muscles and they still don't know how to knock. Sorry about the raucous entrance. Spike in Artron Energy reading at this address. In the light of the last 24 hours, we had to check it out, and the dogs do love a run out. Hello," she gestured at herself. "Kate Stewart, head of scientific research at UNIT. And with a dress sense like that," she looked at the Doctor for that one, before holding out a device to scan both of them. "You must be the Doctor and Adelaide. I hoped it would be you."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Since when did science run the military?"

"Since me. UNIT's been adapting...well, I dragged them along, kicking and screaming, which made it sound like more fun than it actually was."

"What do we know about these cubes?" The Doctor asked.

"Far less than we need to. We've been freighting them in from around the world for testing. So far, we've subjected them to temperatures of plus and minus 200 Celsius, simulated a water depth of five miles, dropped one out of a helicopter at ten thousand feet and rolled our best tank over it. Always intact."

Adelaide nodded. "I like you."

Kate flashed a smile. "From you, that's something."

"I don't want them to be impressive," the Doctor pouted.

"Impressive is more fun," Adelaide reminded him.

"We don't know how they got here, what they're made of, or why they're here."

He nodded. "And all around the world, people are picking them up and taking them home."

"Like iPads have dropped out of the sky. Taking them to work, taking pictures, making films, posting them on Flickr and YouTube. Within three hours, the cubes had a thousand separate Twitter accounts."

The Doctor made a face at that. "Twitter!"

"I've recommended we treat this as a hostile incursion," Kate continued. "Gather them all up and lock them in a secure facility. But that would take massive international agreement and co-operation."

"We need evidence. The cubes arrived in plain sight, in vast quantities, as the sun rose. So, what does that tell us?"

Amy shrugged. "Maybe they wanted to be seen? Noticed?"

"Or more than that, they want to be observed. So we observe them. Stay with them round the clock. Watch the cubes, day and night. Record absolutely everything about them. Team cube, in it together!" The Doctor grabbed a cube and held it up, only to notice how Adelaide was looking at him. "What?"

"Don't say 'team cube' again."

|C-S|

Adelaide was rather calm about the entire situation of waiting to see if the cubes would do anything. True, she was getting a bit annoyed about the fact they couldn't seem to find anything new, but it honestly just made her more determined to find out exactly what the cubes were and why they were there.

The Doctor, on the other hand, had just gotten more and more annoyed without that extra determination.

At the moment, he was lying upside down in the center of the sofa with Amy and Rory on either side of him to watch the cubes. Adelaide, meanwhile, was sitting on the floor opposite them to watch the cubes at their level. "Four days," the Doctor mumbled. "Nothing! Nothing! Not a single change in any cube anywhere in the world. Four days, and we're still in your lounge!"

Amy shrugged. "You were the ones who wanted to observe them."

"Yes, well, I thought they'd do something, didn't I? Not just sit there while everyone eats endless cereal!"

"You said we had to be patient," Rory reminded him.

"Yes, you! You, not me! I hate being patient. Patience is for wimps." He sat up, Adelaide straightening as well to watch him. "I can't live like this. Don't make me. I need to be busy."

"We can watch the cubes," Adelaide said. "You go be busy, just don't break anything."

The Doctor dashed out of the room and Adelaide sunk back down to the cube's level.

About an hour later, with the trio able to hear him doing various things the entire time, the Doctor sat back down on the sofa, breathing heavily. "That's better. Nothing like a bit of activity to pass the time. How long was I gone?"

"57 minutes," Adelaide said.

He shook his head. "I can't do it. No." He stood up. "Come on Adelaide."

"I'm perfectly fine here, thank you."

The Doctor knelt down so that he was at her eye level, forcing her to look up from the cube. "Please?" He leaned even closer. "Pretty please?"

"That won't work."

"Of course not." He grinned and straightened, knowing that Adelaide would stand with him as she did.

They headed back to the TARDIS, the companions getting up to follow them. "Where are you going?" Amy asked them.

However, the Time Lords frowned when they found Brian still sitting in the TARDIS, staring at a cube. "Brian? Adelaide asked, looking honestly like she'd forgotten about the man's existence. "You're still here."

"He told me to watch the cubes."

"Four days ago."

"Ah!" Brian grinned. "Doesn't time fly when you're alone with your thoughts?"

Rory turned to the Doctor. "You can't just leave."

"Yes, of course we can. Quick jaunt, restore sanity." He spun around. "Ooo, hey, come if you like."

"They can't just go off like that," Brian said.

"Can't they? Can't you?" The Doctor frowned. "That's how it goes, isn't it?"

"Rory has a job," Adelaide reminded him, flicking something on the console.

"Oh yes, Rory's job. The universe is waiting, but he has a little job to do."

Rory frowned. "It's not little. It's important to me. Look, what you do isn't all there is."

"We never said it was."

Adelaide stepped forward, holding up a hand between the two men. "We'll be back soon. Monitor the cubes, call me if anything, anything, happens. The TARDIS is already set to every Earth news feed."

All of the humans nodded and left them.

|C-S|

It was Adelaide's idea to bring flowers when they popped back into the human's lives, given the fact they were arriving on their anniversary. From what they could overhear as they walked out to the human's backyard, Amy was in the middle of leaving them a message when they arrived. "...here tonight, being as it's our wedding anniversary. We thought you might have dropped by. I left you two messages..."

"We know," Adelaide said, making Amy turn to find a bouquet shoved into her face by the Doctor.

"Happy anniversary!" He cheered. "Come with us!" He ran back towards the TARDIS.

Adelaide stopped long enough to glance at Amy. "And bring your husband."

|C-S|

The Doctor ran back out of the TARDIS, spreading his arms wide as he took in the hotel they'd landed in. "26th of June, 1890," he told them, the other three stepping out. "The recently opened Savoy Hotel. Dinner, bed, and breakfast for two. Bonjour, bonjour. Merci, Auguste."

Adelaide turned to the humans. "Don't worry, you'll be back before the party's over. They won't even notice you've left."

Rory laughed, kissing the Doctor on either cheek.

|C-S|

Adelaide pulled something out of her hair as the four of them sat outside in the snow wrapped in blankets. "Honestly didn't expect a Zygon ship under the Savoy."

The Doctor nodded. "Half the staff imposters...still, it's all fixed now, eh?" The humans gave him a look, and for once he was thankful that Adelaide didn't seem to be annoyed. He was incredibly tempted to wrap an arm around her, but he settled for helping her get the bits of pavement from her hair.

|C-S|

"Gentlemen, open the doors!" A man ordered from the other side of the Tudor room.

"I thought we were going home?" Amy hissed at the Time Lords as they all tried to find somewhere in the room they could hide.

The doctor shrugged. "You can't miss a good wedding."

"Under the bed," Adelaide called. "Under the bed."

They all scrambled to hide, but they'd barely been there when the Doctor hissed "shush!" at Amy.

"It wasn't my fault."

Rory shook his head. "It was totally your fault!"

"Someone was talking, and I just said yes."

"To wedding vows! You just married Henry VIII on our anniversary."

The doors flew open, Adelaide quickly putting a hand on Rory's mouth, but she didn't think about doing the same to the Doctor...she really wished she had, because in that moment he sneezed. Adelaide groaned and he winced. "Sorry."

|C-S|

The Time Lords stood in the background of Amy and Rory's party, watching as the couple cut a cake while surrounded by friends, having all returned to the original anniversary party.

"How long were they away?" Brian asked the Time Lords, walking up.

"We don't know what you're talking about, Brian."

"Because they're wearing totally different clothes from earlier."

Adelaide held up a hand so that the Doctor didn't speak. "Seven weeks. We both got side-tracked. Apologies."

Brian was quiet for a few moments. "What happened to the other people who travel with you?"

When the Doctor didn't speak immediately, Adelaide touched his hand. "Some left me. Some got left behind. And some, not many but...some died." He swallowed hard and gripped Adelaide's hand seemingly without thinking about it. Like he needed to cling to it in that moment. "Not them. Not them, Brian. Never them."

|C-S|

Later that night, the Doctor and Amy stood together, looking at the sky. "Can we stay here, with you and Rory, for a bit? Keep an eye on the cubes, however long that takes."

"I thought it would drive you mad."

He shook his head. "No, no, no. I mean, I'll be better at it this time, Adelaide promises to help. We miss you."

|C-S|

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory sat on the Pond's sofa watching Lord Sugar while eating fish fingers and custard. Adelaide, meanwhile, was in the process of cleaning up their kitchen after helping the Doctor create his concoction. She could still hear the television, even if she couldn't see it.

"I sent you out to sell as many cubes as you could in 24 hours. And look at you, you've made a right hash of it, haven't you. Well, Craig, you're fired."

The Doctor laughed, sounding like his mouth was full. "If I had a restaurant, this'd be all I'd serve."

"Yeah, right," Amy scoffed. "You, running a restaurant."

"I've run restaurants." The Doctor leaned back, calling to Adelaide. "Tell them!"

Adelaide leaned out of the kitchen, hanging on the doorframe. "He's run restaurants. Yorkshire pudding, for example."

Rory's eyes widened. "You didn't..."

The Doctor grinned. "Pudding, yet savory. Sound familiar?"

|C-S|

Later, the Doctor was using the Wii while Adelaide leaned in the doorway to watch. "Oh, yes!" He cheered. "Second set, Doctor! Ha ha! Oh, if Fred Perry could see me now, eh?"

"He'd probably ask for his shorts back," Adelaide said.

"Are you sure you don't want a go?"

"I told you, I don't see the point of the 'Wii'."

"It's fun!" He rubbed his hands together. "Third set decider, come on, then." A cube flew in front of the screen, something Adelaide spotted immediately but seemed to take the Doctor a bit longer. "Out of the way, dear, I'm trying to..." He stopped, seeming to register what was happening. "Whatever you are, this planet, these people, are precious to us. And we will defend them to our last breaths."

Adelaide stepped forward. "Can you only hover?"

"I had a metal dog that could do that."

One side of the cube opened, pointing a tube at the Doctor. "Duck!" Adelaide shouted, and the Doctor thankfully listened quickly enough that he wasn't hit by the cube firing, the bolt hitting a vase instead. They ran from the room as the cube fired twice more before hovering in front of the television and scanning it, looking like it was surfing the internet.

"Ooo," the Doctor breathed, "you really have woken up."

Rory ran out of the kitchen. "Adelaide? The cube in there, it just opened."

Amy came down the stairs. "The cube upstairs just spiked me and took my pulse!"

"Ha, really?" The Doctor grinned, studying Amy's palm. "Ours just fired laser bolts and now it's surfing the internet."

Brian ran into the home. "You're never going to believe this. My cube just moved. It rattled."

Rory rolled his eyes as he answered his phone. "Hello?" He listened for a bit. "Okay, I'm on my way." He hung up, turning to Amy. "I have to get to work. They need all the help they can get."

"Let me come, help out," Brian stepped forward.

"Take your dad to work night, brilliant! Okay, are you going to be all right here?" He quickly kissed Amy.

"Keep away from the cubes," she reminded him.

"Right." The father and son left.

Meanwhile, Adelaide had stepped up to the Doctor's side to read the message he'd just received on his psychic paper. Amy looked at the pair of them. "What are you grinning about?"

"We're wanted at the Tower of London."

|C-S|

The trio stepped out of the car once it had pulled up to the Tower, Kate waiting for the three of them. "Every cube across the whole world activated at the same moment," she told them.

The Doctor rubbed his hands together. "Now we're in business. You sent us a message to my psychic paper. You know what? I'm almost impressed." He pointed at Adelaide. "And don't say you're impressed that I complimented someone."

 **A/N: Adelaide's is slightly more patient than the Doctor, but only just ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _lautaro94: These two do have difficulties getting it right, don't they?_

 _Arkytior's Song: Those are always my favorite bits too. Especially now because of the stark contrast it can draw between Adelaide and the Doctor._


	8. Impractical

**Impractical**

Kate led them all through a corridor to the main base of UNIT's operation. "Secret base beneath the Tower," Amy commented, looking around. "Hope we're not here because we know too much."

"Yes, I've got officers trained in beheading. Also...ravens of death."

Amy smirked. "I like her."

They entered the main room. It was filled with various compartments each containing a cube, all being tested in various ways. "There are fifty being monitored, and more coming in all the time. I don't know how useful it is. Every cube is behaving individually. There's no meaningful pattern. Some respond to proximity. Some create mood swings..." She nodded at one in particular, which had a woman inside crying.

Amy tapped the glass on one of them, making cubes shoot out flames. She winced and looked at another that looked heavily protected. "What's this one?"

"Try the door," Kate said. Amy did so, revealing that the cube was playing 'The Birdie Song' at high volume. "On a loop!" Amy shut the door. "This is the latest." Kate brought them to a setup of computers and the man sitting in front of it.

"Oh dear," the Doctor leaned forward. "Systems breach at the Pentagon, China, every African nation, the Middle East..."

"I've got governments screaming for explanations and no idea what to tell them. I'm lost, Doctor, Adelaide, we all are."

"Don't despair, Kate. Your dad never did." The Doctor looked at Kate. "Kate Stewart, heading up UNIT, changing the way they work. How could you not be? Why did you drop Lethbridge?"

"I didn't want any favors. Though he guided me, even to the end. 'Science leads', he always told me. Said he'd learned that from an old friend." She looked between the two of them.

The Doctor nodded. "We won't let him down. We won't let this planet down."

The man sat back, Adelaide moving closer to him immediately. "They've stopped. The cubes, across the world, they just shut down."

Kate frowned. "Active for 47 minutes, and then they just die?"

"Not die," Adelaide said. "Dormant."

"Then why shut down?"

"I don't know. I need to think." Adelaide leaned back, turning to the Doctor. "I never did like underground bases."

The Doctor nodded. "Terrible ventilation."

|C-S|

Somehow, the time travelers had convinced Kate to let them sit by the banks of the Thames. Adelaide and the Doctor sat next to each other with Amy on the Doctor's side. The Time Lords' arms were touching, a fact Amy had been very happy to notice. "The moment they arrived," Adelaide said quietly, "we should have had them collected and contained."

"How?" Amy asked. "Nobody would have listened."

The Doctor glanced at her. "You're thinking of stopping, aren't you? You and Rory."

"No. I mean, we haven't made a decision."

"But you're considering it."

Amy shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. We don't know. Well, our lives have changed so much. But there was a time, there were years, when I couldn't live without you. When just the whole everyday thing would drive me crazy. But since you dropped us back here, since you gave us this house, you know, we've built a life. I don't know if I can have both."

"Why?"

"Because they pull at each other. Because they pull at me, and because the traveling is starting to feel like running away."

He shook his head. "That's not what it is."

"Oh, come on," Amy scoffed. "Look at you, four days in a lounge and you go crazy."

"I'm not running away," the Doctor knew Amy was speaking about him then, not Adelaide. "But this is one corner of one country in one continent on one planet that's a corner of a galaxy that's a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see, Amy. Because it goes so fast."

"We're not running away from things," Adelaide added, making the Time Lord looked at her. "We're running to them before they're gone forever. And it's alright, Amy, our lives can never run the same. They can't. You'll stop one day soon. We've known for some time."

Amy frowned. "Then why do you keep coming back for us?"

"Because you were the first," the Doctor said. "And you're seared onto my hearts, Amelia Pond. You always will be."

"We're running to you, and Rory, before you fade forever."

Amy shook her head. "Don't be nice to me. I don't want you to be nice to me."

"Yeah, you do, Pond, and you always get what you want."

Adelaide sat up straight suddenly. "They got what they wanted."

"What? Who did?"

"The cubes." She leaped up. "That's why they stopped."

|C-S|

"Kate?" Adelaide called, walking up to the woman with the Doctor by her side. "Before the cubes went dormant, they scanned everything, from your medical limits to military response patterns. They made a complete assessment of Planet Earth and its inhabitants."

"That's what the surge of activity was," the Doctor added. The power shut off as he finished speaking. "Problem with the power?"

"Not possible. We've got back-ups."

"Adelaide?" Amy called, pointing at a box that now showed a '7'. The Doctor soniced it from a distance.

"Why do they all say seven?" Kate asked, looking at other cubes.

"Seven. Seven, what's important about seven? Seven wonders of the world, seven streams of the River Ota..."

"Seven sides of a cube," Adelaide finished.

"A cube has six sides."

Adelaide shrugged. "Not if you count the inside. But it's a countdown." With the word, the cubes switched to '6'.

Kate frowned. "Not in minutes."

The Doctor turned to her. "Why would it be minutes? Kate, we have to get humanity away from those cubes. God knows what they'll do if they hit zero. Get the information out any way you can. News channels, websites, radio, text messages. People have to know that the cubes are dangerous."

"Okay, but why is this starting now?" Amy asked. "I mean, the cubes arrived months ago. Why wait this long?"

"Allow humans enough time to take them into their lives?" Adelaide offered. "Humans are notorious for...adopting. Now the cubes have a profile of the entire planet."

Kate nodded. "Discover how best to attack us."

"Get that information out any way you can. Go!"

"Right." Kate hurried off.

The Doctor and Adelaide turned to the computers, the Time Lord hurrying to work them and Adelaide going to offer suggestions. "Every cube was activated," he said. "There must be signals."

Adelaide nodded. "Energy fluctuations on a colossal scale. There must be a trace, somewhere." She looked around at the scientists. "We need to think of all the variables and possibilities. Notice everything."

|C-S|

"This isn't necessary," Adelaide told the Doctor, standing next to him as he prepared to go into a room with one of the cubes. "We don't know what these cubes can do, it's safer to do it remotely."

"Since when have I done safe?" He glanced at her. "Are you sure you don't want to join me?" He jostled her with his shoulder. "Please?"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Remotely."

The Doctor just grinned and stepped into the room as the cube switched to 2. He sat as the cube switched to 1, moving faster now than before. It switched to 0, turned off, and opened. He leaned forward, sonicing it. "Geronimo."

"What's happening?" Kate called.

"Well? What's in there?"

He sat back. "There is nothing in there."

Amy frowned. "Well, that's good. It's not...it's not bombs, it's not aliens."

"Why? Why is there nothing inside? Why? It doesn't make any sense."

"Doctor..." Adelaide called, making him come out the room. "All of the cubes appear empty."

"They're empty," Kate said. "We're safe, right?"

"Far from it. Every action of the cubes has been deliberate." She looked at all the screens, the bespectacled scientist from before doing the same. "Use your eyes."

"Look," Amy said, pointing.

Around the world, people were clutching their chests and collapsing to the ground.

"They're CCTV feeds from across the world," the scientist said, eyes wide. "They're showing the same."

"People are dying."

"What?" The Doctor frowned. "They can't be dying. How? How are they dying?"

"I want information on how people are being affected."

"The cubes brought people close together. They opened and then...argh!" The Doctor fell back, clutching his chest. Adelaide, seemingly without thinking went to his side.

Amy ran to his other side. "Doctor, what's the matter?"

"Argh...ah...I don't know!"

The scientist turned. "Hospitals are logging a global surge in heart failures. Cardiac arrests."

He nodded. "That's it. Oh! Oh! Oh! Only one heart. Other one's not working."

"Okay, I'm going to get you to the hospital."

Adelaide held up a hand to stop her and turned to the scientist. "Show us the pattern in the cubes' electrical currents ten seconds after they opened." He pulled it up, revealing a heartbeat.

"No!"

Adelaide nodded. "They used the power cut. A pure electrical surge from the cubes targeted at the nearest human heart. Short circuit an organ powered by electrical currents."

"Ow," the Doctor winced. "Crikey Moses."

"Doctor, the scan you set running," Kate called. "The transmitter locations. It's found them."

Adelaide helped the Doctor go over, letting him lean heavily against her. "And look at them all, pulsing bold as brass. Seven of them, all across the world. Ow!" He hit his chest to attempt to restart his heart. "Seven stations, seven minutes. Why is that important? Argh! Ow! Ow! How do you people manage? One heart, it is pitiful." He soniced the computer. "A wormhole, bridging two dimensions. Seven of them hitched onto this planet, but where's the closest one? Glasses, zoom in."

The scientist did so. "It's the hospital where Rory works," Amy gasped.

|C-S|

The Time Lords walked on one side of Kate, while Amy walked a few steps behind them. The Doctor was still leaning on Adelaide, at her insistence. He'd tried to convince her that he was fine, but she'd refused to believe him. "How many deaths have been recorded?" He asked Kate.

"We don't know. We think it could be a third of the population."

"Kate, we have to find the wormhole, but the attacks could still happen. Tell the world. Tell them how to deal with this. The world needs your leadership right now."

Kate nodded. "I'll do my best."

"Of course you will. Good luck, Kate." Kate hurried off, but the Doctor collapsed against Adelaide. "Argh! Argh!"

Amy stepped forward. "Okay, how long are you going to last with only one heart?"

"Not much longer," he grimaced. "We need to locate the wormhole portal." The Doctor managed to pull out his sonic, flashing the hallway until it landed on a young girl standing there with a cube. "Hello. You're giving off some very strange signals." They moved closer, the Doctor bringing the sonic closer to her face until the girl's face glowed blue.

"Oh my God," Amy gasped.

"Outlier droid, monitoring everything," the Doctor messed with the sonic. "If I shut her down, I can..." The girl started to collapse, only then the Doctor collapsed with her, bringing Adelaide down with him. "It's all right, it's all right..." He gripped Adelaide's arms. "I can't, Adelaide. I can't do it. I need both hearts."

Amy grabbed a nearby defibrillator. "All right. Desperate measures." She looked at Adelaide and the woman moved slightly, allowing Amy better access to his chest.

"What? No, no, no, no, that won't work. I'm a Time Lord."

"I'm a Time Lady and I know it works," Adelaide reminded him, moving away.

Amy ripped open his shirt. "All right, clear!" She used the paddles, shocking him.

The Doctor actually jumped up when his heart started again. "Whoo! Ooo! Welcome back, lefty!" He spun around. "Whoa-ho! Two hearts! Woo! Back in the game." He paused, looking at the two of them. "Ah. Never do that to me again."

"Stop complaining."

|C-S|

The Doctor led them to a goods lift, following his sonic. "Ah, portal to another dimension in a goods lift?" Amy said, the lift dinging.

"The energy signals converge here," the Doctor stepped inside. "Does seem a bit cramped, though." His sonic made a particular sound as he neared the back wall and touched it, making it waver. "Through the looking glass, Amelia?" He smirked at the human, stepping through.

They appeared inside a dark spaceship that looked like it had become some sort of examination room, men and women lying on various slabs. "Where are we?" Amy asked.

"We're in orbit," Adelaide said, nodding to the window.

"One dimension to the left," the Doctor added.

"Rory!" Amy spotted Rory lying on a slab with Brian next to him, though Brian was still on a portable one.

The Doctor tossed Amy a vial. "Soborian smelling salts. Outlawed in seven galaxies." Amy waved it under Rory's nose, making him sit up, only for them all to duck as someone shot at them. "Whoa! Whoa!"

Adelaide frowned at a man who'd appeared, dressed in black. "What kind of a welcome was that?"

"Get them out of here," the Doctor told Amy. "You too. Now!"

"What are you going to do?"

"Absolutely no idea. Get him to the portal." The figure shot again as Brian woke up and the humans rushed out of the room. "Whoa!" The Time Lords stayed down until the shots died down, and then they slowly stood.

"So many of them crawling the planet, seeping into every corner," the figure sneered, vanishing and reappearing in front of a bank of monitors.

The Time Lords stepped closer. "It's not possible," the Doctor breathed. "I thought the Shakri were a myth. A myth to keep the young of Gallifrey in their place."

"The Shakri exist in all of time, and none," the Shakri told them. "We travel alone and together. The Seven."

"You connected the Shakri craft to Earth via seven portals in seven minutes. Why?"

"Serving the word of the Tally."

"Why the cubes? Why Earth?"

"Not Earth, humanity," the Shakri corrected. "The Shakri will halt the human plague before the spread."

The Doctor nodded. "Erase humanity before it colonizes space. We thought the cubes were an invasion. The start of war."

"The human contagion only must be eliminated."

"Who are you calling a contagion?" Amy called, her and Rory running back into the room.

"Oi! Didn't I tell you two to go?"

Rory shrugged. "You should have learned by now."

"Yeah, and what is this Tally anyway?"

"Some people call it Judgement Day, or the Reckoning."

Amy frowned. "Don't you know?"

"I've never wanted to find out."

"Before the Closure," the Shakri said, "there is the Tally. The Shakri serves the Tally."

The Doctor nodded. "The pest controllers of the universe, that's how the tales went, isn't it?" He glanced at Adelaide for confirmation and she nodded.

"Wow," Amy's eyes widened. "That's some seriously weird bedtime story."

"You can talk. Wolf in your grandmother's nightdress?" The Doctor straightened his back, turning back to the Shakri. "So, here you are, depositing slug pellets all over the Earth, made attractive so humans will collect them, hoping to find something beautiful inside. Because that's what they are. Not pests or plague, creatures of hope, forever building and reaching. Making mistakes, of course, every life form does. But...but they learn. And they strive for greater, and they achieve it. You want a tally. Put their achievements against their failings through the whole of time, I will back humanity against the Shakri every time."

"The Tally must be met. The second wave will be released."

"What does that mean?"

Adelaide looked at Amy. "They're going to release more cubes to kill more people."

"The human plague breeding and fighting," the Shakri continued. "And when cornered, their rage to destroy. You're too late, Doctor. The Tally shall be met!" He vanished.

"He's gone?"

"He was never really here." The Doctor went to the monitors. "Just the ship's automated interface, like a talking propaganda poster." He started to sonic it. "I can stop the second wave. I can disconnect all the Shakri craft from their portals, leave them drifting in the darkspace." He looked over at Adelaide. "But all those people who were near the cubes, so many of them will have died."

"I restarted one of your hearts," Amy offered.

"You'd need mass defibrillation."

Adelaide glanced at the Doctor. "The Shakri used the cubes to turn people's hearts off, but we can use them to turn them back on again."

"Will that work?"

The Doctor grinned. "Well, creatures of hope. Has to." He started to sonic the computer, finishing what they needed. "Thirty seconds. Don't let us down, cubes, you're working for us now."

"There's going to be an incredible wave of energy through here any second," Adelaide told them all, spotting a warning. "Run!"

Rory shook his head, turning to run. "I'm going to miss this."

The group just managed to leave the room before the explosion went off behind them.

|C-S|

"You, er, you really are as remarkable as Dad said." Kate kissed the Doctor's cheek. "Thank you."

The Doctor grinned. "My! A kiss from a Lethbridge Stewart. That is new."

Kate looked at Adelaide. "And thank you. I know he would have liked to meet you."

Adelaide nodded. "And I him." She glanced at the Doctor's watch. "We're late for dinner, apologies."

The Doctor gave Kate a salute before both of them turned to the UNIT car to return to the Ponds.

|C-S|

The whole group sat around the Pond's table, finishing their meal of Chinese. Though the Doctor was sitting at the head of the table, Adelaide was close to him across from the Ponds. They'd all just finished a story when the Doctor leaned back, taking care to swallow his food before speaking. "Dear me, we'd better get going. Things to do, worlds to save, swings to swing on." The Time Lords stood and moved towards the TARDIS, but the Doctor stopped to put his arms around the Ponds. "Look, we know you both have lives here. Beautiful, messy lives. That is what makes you so fabulously human. You don't want to give them up. We understand."

"Actually," Brian said, making them look at him, "it's you they can't give up, Doctor and Adelaide. And I don't think they should." He looked at Amy and Rory. "Go with them. Go save every world you can find. Who else has that chance? Life will still be here."

"You could come," Adelaide offered, leaning in the doorway.

He shook his head. "Somebody's got to water the plants. Just bring them back safe."

Amy and Rory smiled and joined the Doctor and Adelaide as the Time Lords moved to unlock the TARDIS, stepping inside to go save the universe.

 **A/N: Seems as though the Time Lords have almost become a team again. Who would have thought that would happen? ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: Always hard to say goodbye to companions :(_

 _Arkytior's Song: These two are surrounded by small moments. :)_


	9. First Pages

**First Pages**

"'New York growled at my window, but I was ready for it'," the Doctor read out, sitting with his back against Amy's, who was doing a crossword puzzle. Rory was lying on his back a little bit away, with Adelaide people watching the people around them. "'My stocking seams were straight, my lipstick was combat ready, and I was packing cleavage that could fell an ox at twenty feet.'"

"Doctor, you're doing it again," Amy cut in.

"I'm reading!"

"Aloud," she finished. "Please, could you not?"

The Doctor looked over his shoulder at her. "There's something different about you, isn't there?"

"What's the book?" Rory asked, looking over.

"Melody Malone. She's a private detective in old town New York."

"She's got ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips," Amy recited, "and a vulnerable side she keeps well hidden."

"Oh, you've read it?"

"You read it," Adelaide reminded him. "Aloud. And then, I believe, you said 'yowzah'."

He started to blush. "I'm just reading it! I just like the cover."

She glanced at him. "May I see the cover?"

"No, no, I'm busy." He pulled the book out of her sight, looking back at Amy. "It's your hair! Is it your hair?"

Amy sighed. "Oh, shut up. It's the glasses." Amy pointed at them. "I'm wearing reading glasses now, on my nose, see? There you go."

The Doctor made a face. "I don't like them. They make your eyes look all liney..." He lifted the glasses up, only to drop them quickly. "No, actually, sorry. They're fine. Carry on." He looked away again, only to realize that there was nothing he could look at without getting increasingly red. Instead, he just looked up at the sky.

"Okay, I'm going to go and get us some more coffee. Who wants some more coffee?" Rory stood. "Me too. I'll go!" He turned, starting to leave.

"Rory," Amy called, making him stop, "do I have noticeable lines on my eyes now?"

"Yes," the Doctor said, clearly not thinking about it.

"No," Rory said.

Rory's back was still to Amy. "You didn't look."

"I noticed them earlier," he winced, turning. "Didn't notice them. I specifically remember not noticing them."

"You walk among fire pits, Centurion."

Rory grinned. "Do I have to come over there?"

"You can if you like."

"Well, we have company." Rory walked over, squatting in front of his wife.

"He has a babysitter." Amy and Rory kissed, and the Doctor made a face.

"Oh, do you know, it is so humiliating when you do that."

Rory laughed and stood again. "Coffee?"

"Coffee," Amy nodded.

"I'll join you," Adelaide said, standing. "I could do with a walk." She glanced at the Doctor and Amy. "Amy, watch him. Try to keep him from getting into any trouble while I'm away."

Amy nodded. "Will do."

The Doctor turned to Amy again as Adelaide and Rory walked away. "Can I have a go?" She gave him her glasses and he put them on, turning back to the book. "Oh, actually, that is much better. That is exciting."

Amy sighed, resettling against his back. "Read to me."

He frowned. "I thought you didn't like my reading aloud."

"Shut up and read me a story. Just don't go 'yowzah'." The Doctor laughed and, before he continued, ripped the last page out of the book. "Why did you do that?"

"I always rip out the last page of a book; Adelaide hates it. But then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings." He put the last page into the picnic basket. "'As I crossed the street, I saw the thin guy and older woman, but they didn't see me. I guess that's how it began. I followed them for two more blocks before she turned and I could ask exactly what they were doing here. He looked a little scared, she a little confused. So, I gave them my best smile and my bluest eyes..." But then the Doctor's voice faded and his eyes widened.

No. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

"Beware the 'yowzah'," Amy warned him. "Do not, at this point, yowz." But the Time Lord didn't say anything. "Doctor? What did the skinny guy and older woman say?"

"He said, 'We just went to get coffees for the Doctor and Amy. Hello, River.'"

|C-S|

"Hello, Dad," River said, smirking, and looked at the pair of them from under the rim of her fedora. She was dressed exactly as Melody Malone had been on the cover of the Doctor's book. "And hello, sweetie."

Rory looked around. "Where are we? How the hell did we get here?"

"Weeping Angels," Adelaide offered.

"Either way, you'll probably want to put your hands up."

A group of men stepped out of the shadows, guns pointed at the two new arrivals, who raised their hands. "Melody Malone?" One of them said, having emerged behind River.

Rory's eyes widened. "You're Melody?"

Adelaide frowned at him. "Had you honestly not realized that yet?"

"Get in," the man ordered as a limo pulled up.

|C-S|

The Doctor found it very difficult to focus on anything when he and Amy rushed back into the TARDIS. All he could think about was Adelaide and the fact she was in danger.

Rory was, honestly, an afterthought at the moment.

"What's River doing in a book?" Amy asked. "What're Rory and Adelaide doing in a book?"

"They went to get coffee," he snapped. "Pay attention."

Amy shook her head. "They went to get coffee and turned up in a book. How does that work?"

"I don't know! We're in New York!"

"Where did you get this book?"

"It was in my jacket."

"How did it get there?"

He threw his hands up. "How does anything get there? I've given up asking!" He started to mess with the TARDIS. "Date, date, does she mention a date? When is this happening?"

Amy started to flick through the book, trying to keep calm despite the fact the Doctor was clearly very angry and upset. "Yes, hang on...April 3rd, 1938."

|C-S|

"What's going on?" Rory asked, shaking his head.

"You didn't come here in the TARDIS, obviously."

"Why?"

River shrugged. "He couldn't have." She glanced at Adelaide. "Sorry, neither of you could have."

Adelaide nodded. "The city's full of time distortions. It would be impossible to land the TARDIS here."

"Like trying to land a plane in a blizzard," River agreed. "Even I couldn't do it."

|C-S|

The Doctor stopped his work. "Even who couldn't do it?"

Amy sighed. "Don't you all fall out, she's only in a book."

"Adelaide agreed with her!"

"Focus?"

He turned back to the console. "1938. Easy one..." But as he spoke, it was very clear that the year was anything put. The console burst into a variety of explosions, the lights flashing, and the monitor flashed 'Temporal Distortions Detected' before switching to 'No Signal'.

"What was that?"

The Doctor frowned at it. "1938. We just bounced off it."

|C-S|

"How did you get here?" Adelaide asked River. "Vortex manipulator?"

She held up her wrist. "Less bulky than a TARDIS. A motorbike through traffic."

|C-S|

The Doctor put out fires as he ran out of the TARDIS, having landed somewhere random in order to deal with what had happened.

"The Weeping Angels?" Amy asked, shaking her head.

"It makes sense," the Doctor said. "Of course it did, if Adelaide thought of it. That's what happened to them, that's what the Angels do. It's their preferred form of attack. They zap you back in time, let you live to death."

"Well, we've got a time machine. We can just go and get them."

"Have you learned nothing from Adelaide?" He frowned at her. "Notice everything. We tried that, and now we're back where we started in 2012."

Amy gestured around them. "We didn't start in a graveyard. What are we doing here?"

"Don't know. Probably casually linked somehow. Doesn't matter. Extractor fans on!"

Amy glanced up from the book, having started to flick through it again. "Well, we're going to get there somehow. We're in the rest of the book."

"Doing what?"

"Page 43, you're going to break something."

He frowned. "I'm what?"

"'Why did you have to break mine,' I asked the Doctor. He frowned and said, 'Because Amy read it in a book and now I have no choice.'"

"Stop!" He snatched the book from her. "No! No! Stop! You can't read ahead. You mustn't. You can't do that."

"But we've already been reading it," Amy reminded him.

"Just the stuff that's happening now, in parallel with us. That's as far as we go."

"But it could help us find Rory and Adelaide."

"And if you read ahead and find that Rory dies?" Amy looked away. "Or that something happens to Adelaide? This isn't any old future, Amy, it's ours. Once we know what's coming, it's fixed. I'm going to break something because you told me I'm going to do it. No choice now."

"Time can be rewritten."

The Doctor clenched his fists. "Not once you've read it. Once you know what's coming, it's written in stone."

|C-S|

The three of them were brought into a home filled with artifacts from a variety of Earth times and countries. "Ah, early Qin dynasty, I'd say," River said, spotting a Chinese vase on a table.

"Correct," a man said, stepping into the room. "Are you an archaeologist as well as a detective?"

"Among other things."

Adelaide glanced at the vase. "Exactly early Qin, actually."

The man looked at River and her. "You're very well informed."

Adelaide nodded. "And you're very afraid. There's an impressive amount of locks on that door."

"Adelaide?" Rory called, making her glance over. "I'm translating."

"The TARDIS," she explained. "Sometimes the effects remain."

"This one," the man said, gesturing to Rory. "Put him somewhere uncomfortable."

"With the babies, sir?"

"Yes, why not? Give him to the babies."

|C-S|

The Doctor popped out of the TARDIS into a decorating workshop in 221BC China. The men and women inside, all painting vases, looked up when he arrived. "Ah, hello, yes," he showed his psychic paper. "Special commission from the Emperor..."

|C-S|

The man, Grayle as he was called, helped River out of her coat as Adelaide examined various things around the room. In particular, she spotted the text on one of the vases shifting to 'yowzah'.

River appeared to have spotted it as well. "Hello, sweetie." She began to look around the room. "Let's see, crime boss with a collecting fetish. Whatever you don't let anyone else see has got to be your favorite..." She stopped in front of a closed curtain. "Or possibly your girlfriend." She opened the curtain to reveal a snarling Angel. It looked like it was being held in place by manacles and chains. "So, girlfriend, then." She glanced at Adelaide and began typing something into her vortex manipulator.

"What are you doing?" Grayle asked her.

"Oh, you know, texting..." She gestured at him. "Keep talking, Adelaide's listening."

He glanced at Adelaide but did continue. "These things are all over, but people don't seem to notice. It never moves while you're looking."

Adelaide nodded. "Yes, we both know how they work."

"I knew of Melody Malone, the detective who investigates Angels, but Adelaide...I've never heard of you."

"Yes, that's by design." She glanced at the Angel. "This is badly damaged."

He nodded. "I wanted to know if it could feel pain."

"It's screaming; the others can hear it. Explains the locks."

Grayle reached over and turned the lights off, turning them back on to reveal that the Angel had grabbed River's wrist. Adelaide didn't look overly bothered, but River was obviously nervous. "You're going to tell me all about these creatures. And you're going to do it quickly." The lights went off again, making the Angel tighten its grip.

"Angels are predators," Adelaide explained. "Extremely deadly. Why do you want them?"

"I'm a collector. What collector could resist these? I'm only human."

River nodded. "That's exactly what they're thinking."

All of the lights started to flicker as a wheezing sound started, a very particular wheezing sound that the two women knew well. "What's that?" Grayle asked, looking around as the room started to shake. "What's happening? Is it an earthquake?" An impressive breeze started. "What is it?"

"He always has been foolish," Adelaide sighed.

"What does that mean?"

"It means," River said, "Mr. Grayle, just you wait till her sweetie gets home."

The TARDIS appeared in the main hall, somehow knocking Grayle out in the process, and Amy ran out. "Rory?" She went straight for the stairs. "Rory! Rory?"

The Doctor came out of the TARDIS, looking very relieved to see Adelaide. "Sorry I'm late, dear. Traffic was hell." He glanced at Grayle. "Shock. He'll be fine."

River sighed. "Not if I can get loose."

He walked up to the pair of them. "So, where are we now, Dr. Song? How's prison?"

"Oh, I was pardoned ages ago. And it's Professor Song to you."

"Pardoned?"

River nodded. "Turns out the person I killed never existed in the first place. Apparently, there's no record of her or the man she associates with. It's almost as if someone's gone around deleting themselves from every database in the Universe."

"You said we got too big."

"And now no one's ever heard of you. Didn't you two used to be somebody?"

"Weren't you the woman who killed Adelaide?" River smirked, and the Doctor stepped up to study the Angel's grip. "She's holding you very tight."

River shrugged. "At least she didn't send me back in time."

"She's likely not strong enough," Adelaide said, sonicing the Angel.

"Well, I need a hand back, so which is it going to be? Are you going to break my wrist or hers?" She looked at the Doctor, who frowned at her. "Oh, no. Really? Why do you have to break mine?"

"Because Amy read it in a book, and now I have no choice." He glanced over at Amy, who'd just stepped back into the room. "You see?"

"What book?"

"Your book. Which you haven't written yet, so we can't read." He held out the book for River and Adelaide to see.

River frowned at it. "I see. I don't like the cover much."

"If River's going to write the book," Adelaide suggested, "she would have made it useful."

River nodded. "I'd certainly try. But we can't read ahead, it's too dangerous."

"Yes, I know that. But we can look at the chapter titles." She held out a hand for the book and scanned the chapter titles. "'Calling the Doctor', 'The Roman in the Cellar', oh yes, sorry, forgot to mention, that's Rory..." Amy ran off, Adelaide throwing her sonic at her before she did so. "'Death at Winter Quay'…" but then she went silent.

"Adelaide?" River asked. "Adelaide, what is it?" The Doctor came to stand beside Adelaide, reading it as well. "Tell me. Adelaide? Doctor? Tell me!"

Amelia's Last Farewell. The last chapter.

"Okay, I know that face," River said. The Doctor's expression had darkened, even Adelaide looked sterner than usual. "Calm down. Both of you calm down and talk to me."

"No!" He couldn't help but snap. "Get your wrist out. You get your wrist out without breaking it!"

"How?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Just do it. Change the future!" He turned and stormed off, no doubt going to find Amy and Rory.

Adelaide, however, stayed near River. "Time can be rewritten," River told her.

"Not if it's a fixed point." Adelaide stepped back. "As you well know." She turned away. "Do what you must."

A few seconds later, the Doctor and Amy ran back up from the cellar. "So, is this what's going to happen?" Amy asked. "We just keep chasing him and they keep pulling him further back?"

River stepped up to Adelaide's side, using one hand to read her scanner. "He isn't back in time. I'm reading a displacement, but there are no temporal markers. He's been moved in space, not in time, and it's not that far from here by the look of it."

The Doctor looked at River and Adelaide. "You got out."

"So, where is he?"

"Well, come on, come on, come on," the Doctor nodded, "where is he?"

"If it was that easy, I'd get you to do it."

He looked at Adelaide. "How did she get her wrist out without breaking it?"

"You asked, she did."

He looked to River again. "You just changed the future."

"Hush, I'm working."

The Doctor grinned. "She's good, have you noticed? Really, really good."

River's device made a sound. "Wherever it is, it's within a few blocks. There's a car out front. Shall we steal it?"

"Show me!" The Doctor moved to grab River's hand, but the woman gasped in pain, making him look down at it. Adelaide had to grab the Doctor's other hand and pull to keep him moving.

 **A/N: Amy and Rory's final farewell :(**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Arkytior's Song: Glad to hear!_


	10. Last Chapters

**Last Chapters**

River sat on the steps in Grayle's home, Amy leaning on a wall nearby, Adelaide closer to the door, and the Doctor pacing between all of them. "Okay, when all those numbers on both units go to zero," he was sonicing River's device, "that's when we've got a lock, okay? It's how we find Rory."

Amy nodded, taking the scanner when he handed it to her. "Got it."

The Doctor stopped closer to Adelaide. "Why did you lie to me?"

"I believe I've made it quite clear that I sometimes hide things from you in an attempt to give you hope." She sighed. "I honestly don't know why I do it. It's entirely illogical." She stepped past him, though he followed, towards River. "That must hurt." The Time Lord crouched before her.

"The wrist is pretty bad too..." River said, letting the Doctor take her injured wrist, only to look down when there was a warmth and her wound glowed with regeneration energy. "No! No, no, stop that. Stop that! Stop it!"

The Doctor only stopped when it was done, letting go of River's hand. "There you go. How's that?"

"Well, let's see, shall we?" She slapped him. "That was a stupid waste of regeneration energy. Nothing is gained by you being a sentimental idiot."

"River..."

"No, you embarrass me." She stood and pushed past both of them. Amy, giving Adelaide the scanner, joined her outside.

"Why did you let her lie?" Amy asked her.

"She doesn't like him to see the damage," River said. "She likes to protect him. He doesn't like endings, after all."

The Doctor ran out of the home, Adelaide stepping out after him at a slightly slower pace. "Got it! He's at a place called Winter Quay. The car, yes? Let's go." They all climbed into the car, not noticing the two statues standing and watching Grayle's home, only his door was closed.

|C-S|

They immediately went into the lift once they arrived at Winter Quay. "Rory?" Amy called, as though her husband would be able to hear her while they were in the lift.

"He's close," River told her, glancing at the scanner as they stopped on the 8th floor.

Amy ran out. "Rory!" She stopped by the open door of apartment 802, seeing someone inside. "Rory!"

"Amy!" He ran up to her, both of them hugging.

River, however, spotted the Angel at the end of the hall. "Doctor, Adelaide, look at this. Why is it smiling?"

Adelaide touched the nameplate on the door of the flat. "Doctor."

He ran into the flat. "Get out of here! Don't look at anything. Don't touch..."

"Who's that?" Amy asked, the entire group moving more into the room as they saw an old man lying in the bed.

The old man was pointing at Amy, fixating on her. "Amy...Amy, please. Amy, please...please..."

"Rory?" Amy's voice was shaking. She recognized him. "He's you."

"Amy..." And then his eyes closed.

"Will someone please tell me what is going on?"

"I'm sorry, Rory," the Doctor said quietly, "but you just died."

Adelaide rolled her shoulders. "This place appears to be policed by Angels. Any time you try to escape, you get sent back in time."

"So this place belongs to the Angels? They built it?"

"Displacing someone back in time creates time energy, and that is what the Angels feed on," the Doctor explained. "But normally, it's a one-off, a hit and run. If they could keep hold of their victims, feed off their time energy over and over again...this place is a farm. A battery farm."

Adelaide looked at River. "How many Angels are in New York?"

"It's like they've taken over every statue in the city."

The Time Lord nodded. "The Angels take Manhattan because they can, because they've never had a food source like this one. The city that never sleeps."

There were loud footsteps outside the window. "What was that?" Rory asked.

"I don't know." The Doctor turned to Rory. "But I think they're coming for you."

"What does that mean? What is going to happen to me? What is physically going to happen?"

"The Angels will come for you," the Doctor explained. "They'll zap you back in time to this very spot thirty, forty years ago. And you'll live out the rest of your life in this room until you die in that bed."

"And will Amy be there?"

"No," Adelaide said.

"How do you know?"

She looked at the dead older Rory. "He was so happy to see you again."

Rory nodded, sounding determined. "Okay. Well, they haven't taken me yet. What if I just run? What if I just get the hell out of here? Then that never happens."

"It's already happened," Adelaide told him. "You've just witnessed your own future."

"Adelaide," River said, "he's right."

"No, he isn't," the Doctor snapped, defending Adelaide for her.

"If Rory got out, it would create a paradox."

Amy glanced at the window as the heavy footsteps continued. "What is that?"

"This is the Angels' food source," River said. "The paradox poisons the well. It could kill them all. This whole place would literally unhappen."

The Doctor's eyes widened. "It would be almost impossible."

River grinned. "Loving the almost."

"But to create a paradox like that takes almost unimaginable power. What have we got, eh? Tell me. Come on, what?"

Amy stepped forward. "I won't let them take him. That's what we've got."

"Whatever that thing is," Rory said, "it's getting closer."

"Rory, even if you got out, you'd have to keep running for the rest of your life," the Doctor told him. "They would be chasing you forever."

"Well, then," Amy grabbed her husband's hand, "better get started," she brought them both to the door and opened it, finding an Angel right outside. "Husband, run!" She pulled him past the Angels as the lights started to flicker, the rest of the Angels moving into the room.

Adelaide glanced at River. "River, I'm not certain if this can work."

"Forgive me, Adelaide, but shut up."

The Doctor soniced the light above them to keep it on, though the Angels surrounded them. "We can't keep doing this."

"Any ideas?"

"Yeah, the usual. Run!" The Doctor grabbed Adelaide's hand as they all started to run, honestly not thinking about the action. They all ran to the stairs, only when that was filled with Angels the Doctor shouted, "okay! Fire escape." They ran up to the roof since they could hear the couple talking.

"No, I can't take you too," Rory said.

"You said we'd come back to life. Money where your mouth is time."

"Amy, look..."

"Shut up. Together, or not at all."

The three of them finally reached the roof to find Amy and Rory standing on the edge of the building. "What the hell are you doing?" The Doctor shouted, running forward.

"Changing the future." Amy smiled at her husband. "It's called marriage."

And then, before the Time Lords or River could do anything, the humans fell off the side of the building. "Amy!" The Doctor screamed, looking over the edge. Adelaide froze, staring at the space the humans had previously been standing. "Amy!"

Balls of energy started to gather around them, flickering intensely. "What's happening?" River asked.

"The paradox..." Adelaide breathed. "It's...working?"

The world went white.

|C-S|

Amy and Rory sat up back in 2012 at the graveyard Amy and the Doctor had landed in earlier. "Where are we?" Rory asked, looking around both of them.

"Back where we started," the Doctor said, walking over. "You collapsed the timeline. The paradox worked. We all pinged back where we belong."

"What, in a graveyard?"

"This happened last time," Amy said. "Why always here?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Does it matter? We got lucky. We could've blown New York off the planet." He glanced at Adelaide as the Time Lady stepped up. "We can't ever take the TARDIS back there. The timelines are too scrambled." He hugged the Ponds. "We could have lost you both. Don't ever do that again."

Rory frowned. "What did we do? We fixed it. We solved the problem."

"He was talking to himself," Adelaide explained, the Doctor stepping back.

River stepped out from behind the TARDIS with a bucket and rag in hand, attempting to help deal with the impressive fire damage. "It could do with a repaint."

He shrugged. "We've been busy."

"Does the bulb on top need changing?"

"I just changed it," Adelaide told her.

River stepped closer to them. "So...Rory and Amy, then."

"Yes, I know, I know."

River shrugged. "I'm just saying. They're going to get terribly bored hanging round here all day."

"Doctor," Rory said, walking up with Amy to the trio. "Look, next time, could we just go to the pub?"

The Doctor spun to look at him. "I want to go to the pub right now. Are there video games there? I love video games."

"Right," River laughed, "family outing, then." She stepped back and opened the TARDIS, letting Adelaide and the Doctor step inside as well.

Rory, meanwhile, called to his wife. "Amy, come and see this."

"What?"

"There's a gravestone here for someone with the same name as me."

"What?"

And then Rory vanished right in front of her, leaving an Angel behind. "Doctor!" Amy screamed. "Adelaide!"

The trio ran out of the TARDIS, freezing when they saw exactly what had happened. "Where the hell did that come from?" River asked.

"It's a survivor. Very weak, but keep your eyes on it."

"Where's Rory?" Amy asked, her voice shaking.

Adelaide looked down at a particular gravestone, her expression solemnizing. "I'm sorry, Amy. I'm...I'm so sorry." Everyone looked at Rory's gravestone, though Adelaide switched her gaze to the Angel.

"No. No, we can just go and get him in the TARDIS. One more paradox..."

"Would rip New York apart."

Amy shook her head. "No, that's not true. I don't believe you."

"Mother," River said, "it's true."

Amy looked at the gravestone for a few moments longer before taking a step towards the Angel. "That gravestone, Rory's, there's room for one more name, isn't there?"

"What are you talking about? Back away from the Angel. Come back to the TARDIS. We'll figure something out."

She took a deep breath. "The Angel, would it send me back to the same time? To him?"

"I don't know. Nobody knows."

"But it's my best shot, yeah?"

"No!" The Doctor begged.

"Doctor, shut up," River cut in. "Yes, yes it is."

"Amy..." Adelaide took the Doctor's hand, holding him back.

"Well, then." Amy took another breath. "I just have to blink, right?"

"No!"

Amy nodded. "It'll be fine. I know it will. I'll be with him, like I should be. Me and Rory together." She took another step forward.

"Stop it. Just...just stop it!"

"Are you certain about this, Amy?" Adelaide asked. "Are you certain this is what you want?"

"Yes." Amy nodded again. "Melody?" River stepped forward, taking Amy's hand and kissing it. "You look after them. You be a good girl, and you look after them."

"You're going to create a fixed time," Adelaide continued, her voice breaking slightly. Even she couldn't hold back her sadness, her anger, about the fate of the Ponds. This wasn't choice, this was stealing, this wasn't right. "We will never be able to see you again."

"It'll be fine. I'll be with him."

"Amy, please, just come back into the TARDIS," the Doctor begged, tears in his eyes now. "Come along, Pond, please."

"Raggedy man, Addy...goodbye!" Amy spun, turning her back to the Angel and blocking it from their sight. She vanished a second later.

Her name appeared on Rory's gravestone.

The Doctor fell to his knees, in full tears now. "No!" Adelaide knelt with him and let him hug her, let him hold her, because she needed it.

She hadn't expected, hadn't wanted, to get so close to the Ponds, but...it had happened. She'd gotten close to them, she'd cared for them.

And now she'd lost them.

|C-S|

River took charge of flying the TARDIS for the Time Lords as they sat together on the steps of the TARDIS. Adelaide hadn't expected to want it but...she cared too much about the Doctor to let him grieve on his own. They sat as close as they possibly could while they sat side by side, hands clasped.

"River," the Doctor said quietly, making the woman glance at him, "they were your parents. I'm sorry, I didn't think."

"It doesn't matter."

"Of course it matters."

River sighed. "What matters is this." She moved to stand before them. "Doctor, Adelaide, don't travel alone." She looked at Adelaide specifically. "You know what I mean."

"Travel with us, then," the Doctor offered.

"Whenever and wherever you want. But not all the time." She gave a small smile. "One psychopath per TARDIS, don't you think?" She turned back to the TARDIS, continuing to pilot. "Okay, this book I've got to write. Melody Malone. I presume I send it to Amy to get it published?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Yes."

"I'll tell her to write an afterword. For you. Maybe you'll listen to her." River stepped out of the TARDIS, having brought them to wherever she wanted to go.

It took Adelaide a few more seconds before she sat up, making the Doctor look at her. "The last page."

|C-S|

The picnic hamper from before was still there, as the Doctor had been a bit too distracted by the loss of Adelaide and Rory to clean it up. He pulled the page from the basket, taking Amy's reading glasses too, and then they both sat on a nearby bench for the Doctor to read aloud.

The Time Lords held hands again as they sat there, needing to know the other was there at the moment.

"'Afterword, by Amelia Williams. Hello, old friends. And here we are, you and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well, and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always. Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think once we're gone, you won't be coming back here for a while, and you two might be alone, which you should never be. Don't be alone. Whatever you do, Adelaide, don't let the two of you be alone. And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to sea and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived and help save a whale in outer space. Tell her this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends.'"

The Doctor lowered the page, both Time Lords looking out at the park around them.

The Time Lords Victorious, left alone once again.

It seemed to be inevitable.

 **A/N: Goodbye Ponds :(**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: Even Adelaide's getting a bit emotional at their loss :(_


	11. Investigating

**Investigating**

The Time Lords walked arm in arm through the snow-covered streets of Victorian London. They were both dressed in styles that blended in with the times, both in dark colors, and both looked quite satisfied to be near the other.

Vastra seemed determined to call them down from the cloud they'd left the TARDIS on as often as she possibly could. Most of the time, Adelaide went on her own, but as much as she could she forced the Doctor to come with her. She didn't really want to go, but she knew he would, she knew it was better for him.

Adelaide didn't know how much of her current grief came from her own honest feelings or the Doctor's influence. She'd honestly never had a companion before so she didn't know how she could be expected to act when she lost one. And the last time the Doctor had lost one, he'd had Caroline, he hadn't been completely alone.

But now they were. At least, as alone as the last two Time Lords could be.

The pair walked past a pub, Rose & Crown, and the brunette woman standing in front of it staring at a strange looking snowman. "Did you make this snowman?" she asked them.

"No," the Doctor mumbled

"Well, who did?" the woman continued. "Because it wasn't there a second ago. It just appeared, from nowhere."

Adelaide forced the Doctor to stop, starting to walk backward until he turned so that they could examine it. He pulled on Amy's reading glasses and touched the snow. "Maybe it's snow that fell before. Maybe it remembers how to make snowmen."

The woman gave him a look. "What, snow that can remember? That's silly."

"He's a very silly man," Adelaide told her. "Do you take issue with silly?"

She shrugged. "Nope. Still talking to you, ain't I?"

"What's your name?"

"Clara."

"Nice name. Clara." He nodded. "You should definitely keep it. Goodbye!" that time, the Doctor made Adelaide keep walking.

"Oi!" Clara called, following them. "Where are you going? I thought we were just getting acquainted."

Adelaide sighed, glancing over her shoulder. "Those were the days." She knew that the Doctor needed to get out and do things, she knew he couldn't stand to be stuck anywhere, but she also knew that no wasn't the time for adventures.

Clara turned to go back to the pub she'd come from, but then she stopped, glancing back at the pair and watched them climb into a carriage. She hiked up her skirt in order to run after them.

|C-S|

Meanwhile, inside the carriage, Vastra spoke through the small device installed on the top of it. "How refreshing to see you taking an interest again. Was she nice?"

"We just spoke to her."

Vastra chuckled. "And made your usual impact, no doubt."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no impact at all. Those days are over."

"You can't help yourself." They both knew she was specifically speaking to the Doctor. "It's the same story every time. And it always begins with the same two words."

"She'll never be able to find us again," the Doctor scoffed. "She doesn't even have the name. Doctor." He frowned. "What two words?"

Even Adelaide leaned back in shock when the hatch on the top of the carriage open and Clara hung through upside down. "Doctor? Doctor who?"

|C-S|

The Doctor was only slightly surprised that Adelaide had agreed to lock Clara inside the carriage while they stood outside. They'd both agreed to attempt to maintain their anonymity throughout the universe and that included Victorian England.

It seemed as though the Doctor had finally begun to believe something Adelaide had known since long before the war; their influence could hurt people. She'd never had a companion, after all, even if she'd had ample opportunity to do so. She knew the ruin that influence could bring. She knew that he wouldn't always think that, but for now, at least, they'd both agreed.

With Amy originally, Adelaide hadn't really had a say in if the human could come along. The TARDIS was only the Doctor's after all, he was the one who had the final say on who could come in and not. If he really wanted to, he could even ask Adelaide to leave.

So that meant she had to tolerate him wanting a companion. And she did, most of the time, because she told herself that it was important to him to have someone who wasn't a Time Lady with him.

However, while she understood why he didn't want any companions at the moment, she didn't understand his desire to completely shut themselves off. She may not want to be known throughout the universe, but she was still an explorer, a scientist. She still wanted to learn.

She couldn't do much of that while the Doctor was determined to keep the TARDIS resting on a cloud about Victorian London, secluded from the world.

"They've taken samples from snowmen all over London," Strax told them, watching a man, Simeon, enter his Institute. "What do you suppose they're doing in there?"

The Doctor eyed a bit of the snow. "This snow is new. Possibly alien."

Adelaide glanced towards Simeon. "And when you discover something new, what's the next thing men look for?"

"A grenade?" Strax offered.

"A profit," she corrected as the Doctor stood. "Victorian values."

"I suggest a full frontal assault with automated laser monkeys, scalpel mines, and acid."

The Doctor blinked. "Why?"

Strax shrugged. "Couldn't we at least investigate?"

"It's none of our business."

"Sir, permission to express my opposition to your current apathy?"

He nodded. "Permission granted."

"Sir, I am opposed to your current apathy."

Clara banged on the carriage door. "Let me out!"

"Thank you, Strax," the Doctor linked his arm through Adelaide's. "And if ever we're in need of advice from a psychotic potato dwarf, you'll certainly be the first to know."

Strax looked at Adelaide, clever enough to know that he should appeal to her. "But if the snow is new and alien, shouldn't we be making some attempt to destroy it? Be reasonable."

"Let me out!"

"It's not our problem," the Doctor said. "Over a thousand years of saving the universe, Strax, you know the one thing I learned? The universe doesn't care."

"In this cab!" it sounded like Clara had started to kick it. "Oi, Doctor! Let me out! Are you listening to me?"

He glanced back at her. "Now, we have a problem of our own to worry about."

"Let me out!"

Adelaide stepped forward, stopping the Doctor. "You're grumpy." Once he'd stepped back, she opened the door and slid inside. "Hello, my name is Adelaide. No one is going to hurt you."

Clara, however, could only focus on Strax. "What is that thing?"

"Silence, boy!"

"That's Strax. He's easily confused."

"Silence, girl," Strax corrected, catching on. "Sorry, lad."

"He's a Sontaran," Adelaide continued. "Member of a clone warrior race that's produced whole legions at a time. Two genders is a bit too confusing for him."

Strax glared at her. "Sir, do not discuss my reproductive cycle in front of enemy girls. It's embarrassing."

"Ma'am, Strax."

Clara frowned at Adelaide. "Who are you?"

"Doesn't matter, as you're about to forget this entire interaction ever happened." She glanced at the Doctor and Strax. "We'll need the worm," she reminded both of them.

"Ma'am," Strax nodded, rushing off to fetch it.

"You'll need the what? The worm? What worm?"

The Doctor leaned into the carriage. "Don't worry, it won't hurt, but one touch on your bare skin and you lose the last hour of your memory." Strax returned, empty-handed. "Where is it?"

"Where's what, sir?"

"We sent you to get the memory worm."

Strax frowned. "Did you? When? Who's he? What are we doing here? Look, it's been snowing!"

Adelaide sighed. "You didn't use the gauntlets."

"Why would I need the gauntlets? Do you want me to get the memory worm?"

The Doctor clenched his jaw. "You…"

|C-S|

The Doctor leaned against the carriage as he watched Strax look for the memory worm. Adelaide had consented to let Clara out to stand by a nearby building while they waited. "Well, can you see it?" the Doctor asked Strax.

"I think I can hear it."

Clara giggled and the Doctor glanced at her. "Oi, don't try to run away. Stay where you are."

She shrugged. "Why would I run? I know what's going to happen next and it's funny."

"What's funny?"

"Well, your little pal, for a start." Clara gestured towards Strax. "He's an ugly little fella, isn't he?"

"Maybe." The Doctor looked back at Strax. "He gave his life for a friend of ours once."

"Then how come he's alive?"

"Another friend brought him back," Adelaide explained. "We're still not certain if all of his brains returned with him."

Clara nodded. "Neither am I."

"I can see it!" Strax called.

"Ooo! Can you reach it? Have you got it?"

Strax stopped. "Got what, sir?"

Clara stepped forward, pulling a pair of gloves off the carriage. "Because these are the gauntlets, aren't they?"

Adelaide smiled at her. "Notice everything."

"Sir, emergency!" Strax shouted. "I think I've been run over by a cab!"

|C-S|

The Doctor was very careful not to let any bit of the memory worm touch him as he shoved it back into the jar. He'd refused to let Adelaide do it herself, even though she'd offered. "There you do," he grumbled. "One touch and you lose about an hour of your memory. Let it bite you and you could lose decades." He managed to shut the lid and looked back up to Clara, who was standing patiently next to Adelaide. "And you're still not trying to run."

Clara shrugged. "I don't understand how the snowman built itself. I'll run once one of you've explained."

"Clara who?"

"Doctor who?"

Adelaide glanced at the human. "Dangerous question."

"What's wrong with dangerous?" Clara looked to the side, seeing something, but Adelaide had already looked back at the Doctor.

"The snow emits a low-level telepathic field," the Doctor explained.

"My snowman…" Clara mumbled, making Adelaide look over again, frowning into the darkness of the alley they were standing next to. The Doctor had been careful to have the carriage stop in a well-lit area for her, but that didn't mean it applied to alleys.

"It seems to reflect people's thoughts and memories and because it's unusual, somehow it carries a previous shape and…"

"Doctor," Adelaide said sharply, cutting him off. "The snowman."

He hurried to come next to her. "Ah! Interesting."

"Were you thinking about it?" Adelaide asked Clara.

"Yes." And then another appeared right next to the first.

"Well, stop." Another appeared. "Clara, stop thinking about snowmen! Get down!" He grabbed Adelaide, who in turn grabbed Clara, and they all ducked as the nearest snowmen breathed on them. "Clara, listen to me. The snow's feeding off your thoughts."

Clara shook her head. "I don't understand."

Adelaide turned to her, grabbing both of her shoulders. "You're caught in their telepathic field, so the more you think about the snowmen the more they appear. Imagine them melting. Picture them melted."

Clara closed her eyes and focused. They all flinched when bits of icy water struck them as the snowmen melted.

"Well, very good," the Doctor said. "Very, very good."

"Is that going to happen again?" Clara glanced at the puddles that used to be snowmen.

"Well, if it does, you know what to do about it."

Clara smirked. "Unless I forget."

Both Time Lords sighed. She was right.

|C-S|

Despite the Doctor and Adelaide's instructions to forget them and not come looking, Clara had remembered and she'd gone to hunt them down. One of the children she looked after, Francesca, had started having nightmares about her previous governess who'd died in her family's pond. Francesca's brother, Digby, had told Clara that he thought his sister needed a doctor, and Clara had decided to get her just that.

The last time she'd followed them, she'd climbed a ladder and staircase into the clouds and found a mysterious blue box. But now, when she went back to the spot the ladder had been in the night before, there was nothing there. Her attempts to call the Doctor or Adelaide down had drawn a crowd, but then a woman, Jenny, had rushed up and dragged her away, bringing her to the home of Madame Vastra.

Apparently, Vastra knew the two mysterious people. There was the chance she'd be willing to help Clara communicate with them.

Clara jumped when Strax opened the door. "Do not attempt to escape or you will be obliterated! May I take your coat?"

She glanced at Jenny before doing that and following the woman into the conservatory. Inside, a lizard woman - an actual lizard woman - was sitting surrounded by various exotic plants, some Clara swore couldn't be from anywhere on Earth.

"Sit," Jenny ordered, gesturing at the chair across from Vastra.

"There are two refreshments in your world the color of red wine." Vastra set her glass to the side. "This is not red wine."

Jenny stood beside Vastra. "Madame Vastra will ask you questions. You will confine yourself to single word responses. One word only, do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Truth is singular," Vastra said. "Lies are words, words, words. You met the Doctor and Adelaide, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And now you've come looking for them again. Why?"

Clara frowned. "Take your time," Jenny told her. "One word only."

"Curiosity."

"About?"

"Snow."

"And about them?"

"Yes."

Vastra nodded. "What do you want from them?"

"Help."

"Why?"

"Danger."

"Why would they help you?"

"Kindness."

"The Doctor is not kind."

"Adelaide?"

"Adelaide doesn't help people."

"No?"

"They stand above this world and don't interfere in the affairs of its inhabitants. He is not your salvation; she is not your protector. Do you understand what I am saying to you?"

Clara grinned. "Words."

Vastra sighed. "They were different, once, a long time ago. Kind, yes. A hero, even. A saver of worlds. A protector of many. But they suffered losses which hurt them. Now he prefers isolation to the possibility of pain's return. Kindly choose a word to indicate your understanding of this."

"Man."

Vastra nodded. "We, including Adelaide, are the Doctor's friends. We assist him in his isolation but that does not mean we approve of it. So, a test for you. Give me a message for Adelaide and the Doctor. Tell them all about the snow and what fresh danger you believe it presents, and above all, explain why they should help you. But do it in one word." Clara's eyes widened. "You're thinking it is impossible that such a word exists, or that you could even find it. Let's see if the gods are with you."

|C-S|

The Doctor sat in the TARDIS reading a book. He did that a lot lately; instead of running off on some adventure on an alien planet, he lost himself in an adventure someone else had had. He claimed it was safer, as there was obviously no chance that his presence could influence and ruin the lives of the people in the book.

Adelaide, meanwhile, was sitting on the other seat in the TARDIS console reading a collection of journals Vastra had given her. Every few minutes, she would look up at the Doctor and be very tempted to say something, but never did.

The two of them really needed to work on their communication. It seemed as though, however hard they tried, they couldn't quite manage it.

When the phone rang, it was Adelaide who got up and answered it. Once, she'd caught him rambling to the point that he'd nearly offended the person he'd been speaking to. Since then, she didn't let him touch the phone. "Hello, Vastra."

"Adelaide. Miss Clara and her concerns about the snow; I gave her the one-word test."

Adelaide glanced at the Doctor, noticing the Time Lord had stopped reading in order to listen without looking like he was. "And her answer?"

"Pond."

The Doctor fully looked up at her, and she couldn't help but smile.

|C-S|

Due to the fact that Sherlock Holmes was both a man and fictional, Adelaide had refused to take the moniker, even though the Doctor insisted that her logical nature made her more of the detective than him.

Thus, as they walked through the halls of Simeon's Institute, it was the Doctor wearing a deerstalker, holding a cane, and had a pipe sticking out of one side of his mouth.

They walked into the office after the servant, as Adelaide had insisted that they needed to follow at least some of the decorum of the day. "Oh, nice office," the Doctor said, looking around them. "Big globey thing. Now, shut up, don't tell me!" he pointed his cane at Simeon. "I see from your collar stud that you have an apple tree and a wife with a limp. Am I right?"

Simeon looked too confused to properly process their presence. "No."

"Do you have a wife?"

"No."

"Bit of a tree? Bit of a wife? Some apples? Come on, work with me here."

Simeon sighed. "I enjoy The Strand magazine as much as the next man, but I am perfectly aware that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character." The Doctor pointedly didn't look at Adelaide then, knowing the woman was allowing herself a small smirk. "Get out!"

He pointed at the servant. "Do you have a goldfish named Colin?"

"No?"

"Thought not." The Doctor plucked a business card from a pile of papers. "Now, ooo, I see this is one of your business cards. It says so on the front."

"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"What's this?" Adelaide called, making Simeon spin to her. As the Doctor had been distracting him, she'd stepped up to examine various bits of the room, including the globe.

"That is highly valuable equipment! You must step away now." He moved to grab Adelaide, but the Doctor slapped the cane across the man's chest, stopping him as Adelaide stepped away on her own.

"We are the Intelligence," the globe spoke itself.

Adelaide and the Doctor exchanged a grin. This was what she loved. "Talking snow. New things are wonderful, aren't they?"

"You are not of this world."

"Takes one to snow one!" the Doctor said, earning a sterner look from Adelaide. "Right, let's see." He gestured for her to speak.

Adelaide crossed her hands in front of herself. "Multi-nucleate crystalline organism with the ability to mimic and mirror what it finds."

The Doctor nodded. "Looks like snow. Isn't snow."

"You must leave here now."

"Shut up, we're making deductions." The Doctor spun to stand next to Adelaide. "It's very exciting." After a smiled to Adelaide, he started to pace again as he thought. "Now, what are you, eh? A flock of space crystals? A swarm? The snowmen are foot soldiers, mindless predators. But you, you're the clever one. You're Moriarty. So, you turn up on a planet, you generate a telepathic field to learn what you can," he pulled out his sonic, locking the main doors, "and when you've learnt enough, what do you do? You can't conquer the world using snowmen. Snowmen are rubbish in July. You'll have to be better than that. You'll have to evolve."

"Sir, it appears to be stuck!" the servant called from outside.

"What have you done? Have you locked the doors?"

Adelaide, having been investigating more papers on Simeon's desk, stepped up to the Doctor with a journal. "It would need to translate into something more human, and to do that you'd need a perfect duplicate of human DNA in ice form."

"Kick it down!"

She held up a specific page and news clipping, letting the Doctor see it. "Governess frozen in pond."

He grinned. "Gotcha!" They ran out the side door, leaving Simeon attempting to open the main ones.

|C-S|

The Time Lords walked around opposite sides of the pond, both sonicing it. "Body frozen in a pond," the Doctor mumbled. "The snow gets a good long look at a human being, like a full body scan. Everything they need to evolve. Pond." He smiled to himself. "Good point, Clara." He turned and spotted Strax walking up to them with a gun in hand. "What are you doing here?"

"Madame Vastra wondered if you were needing any grenades?"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Grenades?"

"She might have said help."

"Help for what?"

"Well, your investigation."

The Doctor scoffed. "Investigation? Who says we're investigating? Do you think I'm going to start investigating just because some bird smiles at me? Who do you think I am?"

Strax thought for a second. "Sherlock Holmes."

"Don't be clever, Strax. It doesn't suit you."

"Sorry, sir."

"She's the clever one," he pointed at Adelaide, "I'm the grumpy one, you're the potato one."

"Yes, sir."

"Now go away."

"Yes…Mr. Holmes." Strax grinned at Adelaide.

"Oi! Shut up! You're not clever or funny and…you've got tiny little legs!" He turned to Adelaide. "Why are you smiling?"

"There is ample evidence of you investigating if a 'bird' smiles at you." She stepped up, looking up at the home the pond was on the grounds of. "Clara's seen us."

He looked up and Clara waved. Without thinking, he waved back, and then he spun. "Okay, just tell her you're leaving," he told himself, trying to speak quiet enough for Adelaide to hear, "you're not going up. Leaving. Not going up." But when he turned again and held up his hand, he very clearly showed five fingers. "What was that about? Five minutes, where did that come from?" He looked at Adelaide, who'd just crossed her arms. "You…"

"Yes?"

|C-S|

Clara smiled to herself as she stepped away from the window, having seen the Doctor and Adelaide walking towards the house. The two children were sitting on their beds getting prepared for sleep, but neither of them was particularly looking forward to it. "Am I going to have the nightmare tonight?" Francesca asked her.

"Definitely not."

"How do you know?"

She sat on the end of the bed. "Because someone's coming to help."

"Who?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Francesca smiled. "Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?"

"Ha!" she pretended to be offended. "All my stories are true."

"Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?" Digby asked, laughing.

"Accounting for my acute sense of time."

"And you invented fish."

Clara nodded. "Because I dislike swimming alone."

"So what's this one?"

"There's a man called the Doctor and a woman called Adelaide. They live on a cloud in the sky, and all they do, all day every day, is to stop all the children in the world ever having bad dreams."

Francesca frowned. "I've been having bad dreams."

"They've been on holiday. But I am confident she has made him return to work. And as matter of fact," there was a gentle breeze as the door opened, "they're right here. Aren't you?"

But when they looked at the door, it wasn't two mysterious adventurers.

It was a woman made of ice.

Specifically, the governess who'd been frozen in a pond.

The children screamed and Clara leaped up. "Bloomin' hell!" She grabbed them, pulling them behind her in some attempt to protect them.

"The children have been very naughty!"

"Get back. Now. Quickly." She'd dropped her accent in the shock.

"You're doing your other voice," Digby said.

"Yes love, did you notice?"

"Naughty, naughty children!"

"Run!" Clara pulled the children after her into another room, trying to escape the ice governess.

"What do we do?" Digby asked.

Clara turned to Francesca, bending to her height and grabbing her shoulders. "Frannie, Frannie, imagine her melting."

"What?"

"In your 'ead. Melt 'er."

"I can't!"

"I'm getting impatient!" the ice governess attempted to force the door open. "You have been very naughty!"

"What about the man and woman? You said they were here, the cloud people."

Clara pushed them behind her again. "Well, they're not, are they?"

"Where's the Doctor and Adelaide?"

"I don't know!"

Suddenly, a puppet popped up from the small theater the children had. "Doctor? Doctor? Doctor who?" the puppet aimed a sonic at the ice governess and made her shatter, letting the Doctor himself pop up. "That's the way to do it." The punch puppet kissed him. "Oi! Did you know it's rude to kiss someone without asking?" The puppet punched him. "Ow!"

Francesca looked between the puddle the ice governess had become and the Doctor. "Where did she go? Will she come back?"

"Hopefully, she's currently draining through your carpet," Adelaide said, stepping into the room. "He made a new setting: anti-freeze, apparently."

"And you're very welcome, by the way," the Doctor said, stepping out. "Always be polite, Adelaide doesn't like it if you're not polite."

Clara nodded at both of them. "I'm very grateful. I knew you'd come."

"No, you didn't, because I don't. Because we" he gestured between the Time Lords "don't. Because this isn't the sort of thing we do anymore. Next time you're in trouble, don't expect us to…" he trailed off as he caught his own eye in a nearby mirror.

Clara frowned at him. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"Sorry, it's just…didn't know I'd put it on." He straightened his back, adjusting the bowtie. "Old habits."

Clara shivered slightly. "It's cooler."

"Yeah, it is, isn't it? It is very cool. Bow ties are cool."

"Doctor, the room," Adelaide said, cutting him off. "Notice everything, the room is getting colder."

"She's coming back!" Digby shouting, pointing at the point in the carpet that the ice governess had melted through.

"What's she going to do? Is she going to punish me?"

The Doctor looked between the ground, his sonic, and Adelaide. "Er…er…she's learnt not to melt." He turned to Francesca. "Of course, she's not really a governess, she's just a beast. She's going to eat you. Run!"

They all ran from the room, ushering the children out first just as their father stepped out of the study at the sound. "Children, what is the expla-" he saw the Time Lords, glaring at them. "Who the devil are you? What are you doing in my house?"

"It's okay! We're your governess' friends, and we've just been upstairs…"

He was cut off by the maid rushing into the hall. "Captain Latimer! In the garden, there's snowmen! And they're just growing out of nowhere, all by themselves. Look!" she threw open the front door only to find Vastra and Jenny on the doorstep.

"Good evening," Vastra nodded. "I'm a lizard woman from the dawn of time and this is my wife."

The maid screamed and ran back down the hall, only for Strax to step into her way. "This dwelling is under attack. Remain calm, human scum."

She fainted with another scream.

 **A/N: Welcome to Clara! Adelaide will certainly have a different relationship with her than she ever did with Amy and Rory.**

 **It is odd, since as I'm posting this, I'm in the process of writing Clara's final episodes. What a coincidence ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: I hope so too :)_


	12. Protecting

**Protecting**

The Doctor just clapped his hands. "So, any questions?"

"Vastra?" Adelaide said, turning to the woman. "Updates on the snow?"

"It's highly localized, and on this occasion not naturally occurring."

"It never is when he's involved," Adelaide sighed, gesturing back at the Doctor.

Jenny smiled for a second. "It's coming out of that cab parked by the gates."

"Sir, one pulver grenade would blow these snowmen to smithereens."

"They're made of snow, Strax. They're already smithereens."

The Doctor turned to Clara. "See, Clara? Our friends again."

The father frowned. "Clara? Who's Clara?"

"Your current governess is, in reality, a former barmaid called Clara," Adelaide said.

"That's the way to do it!" the ice governess called, appearing on the staircase.

The Doctor turned to her, pulling out his sonic. "Meanwhile your previous governess is now a living ice sculpture impersonating Mr. Punch."

"Jenny," Adelaide called, "anything good?"

Jenny threw a small ball at the ice governess, creating a force field that seemed effective at keeping the ice governess in place. "That should hold it."

Strax stuck his head out of one of the rooms on the first floor. "Sir, this room. One observational window on the line of attack and one defendable entrance."

"Right, everyone in there, now." The Doctor ushered the people into the room. "Move it! You" he snapped at the father "carry her" and pointed at the maid. He stopped by Adelaide's side, both of them turning to check on the ice governess again.

Vastra stepped up to the Doctor. "Nice to see you off your cloud and engaging again."

"We're not engaging again, we're under attack!"

She smirked. "You missed this, didn't you?"

He pouted. "Shut up." The Doctor stalked past her into the study, leaving Vastra and Adelaide to exchange a look before they joined him. "Strax, how long have we got?"

"They're not going to attack," Strax told him. "They made no attempt to conceal their arrival. An attack force would never abandon surprise so easily, and they're clearly in a defense formation."

The Doctor grinned. "Way, aye aye! Well done, Straxie. Still got it, buddy!" he gave Strax a noogie before kissing his head, grimacing and sticking his tongue out at the taste.

"Sir, please do not noogie me during combat prep."

"So there's something here they want," the Doctor said, turning to Adelaide.

"The ice woman," Clara offered.

He pointed at her. "Exactly."

Jenny shook her head. "Why's she so important?"

"She's a perfect duplication of human DNA in ice crystal form," Adelaide said. "In order to survive on this planet, the snow needs to evolve and she's the blueprint of what they need to become." She turned to Jenny. "When the snow melted last night, did the pond?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Living ice that will never melt." The Doctor nodded. "If the snow gets hold of that creature on the stairs, it will learn to make more of them. It will build an army of ice. And it will be the last day of humanity on this planet." The doorbell rang, and the Time Lords glanced at each other. "Stay here," he ordered the humans, both of them moving out of the room.

"Including you, Clara," Adelaide said, spotting the woman moving to join them. "Stay back."

"Why? I don't have to listen to you."

Adelaide sighed, stepped in front of the Doctor, and opened the front door. Simeon stared them down. "Release her to us. You have five minutes." Simeon walked away, and Adelaide closed the door.

"We need to get her out of here but keep her away from them," the Doctor said.

"How?"

He grabbed a nearby umbrella, twirling it and looking at Adelaide to see if she looked at all impressed.

The Time Lady hadn't noticed.

"With this," the Doctor explained, turning to Clara. "Do I always have to state the obvious?"

The father stepped out into the hall. "Those creatures outside, what are they?"

"No danger to you, as long as we" he pointed the umbrella at Adelaide "get that thing out of here. You" back at the father "in there" to the room "now." He leaped up the stairs and pulled out his sonic again.

"What are you doing?" Clara asked him, following.

"Between you and me," Adelaide said, joining them on the stairs, "I can't wait to find out."

The force field flickered off and reappeared behind the group, accidentally including Clara. "Right," the Doctor hadn't seemed to notice that Adelaide had been standing behind Clara in the first place, "if you look after everyone here, then we can…" he turned and nearly ran directly into Clara. "Clara!"

"Doctor!"

They all ducked as the governess swung at them, running under her arm up the stairs. "That was stupid!"

Clara shrugged. "You were stupid, too!"

"I'm allowed. I'm good at stupid! Adelaide says so!"

"I've never said that."

"That's the way to do it!" the ice governess screeched, following them.

Clara shook her head. "Why does she keep saying that?"

"Random mirroring?" Adelaide offered.

"We need to get on the roof."

Clara turned, grabbing Adelaide's hand and running off. "This way!"

The Doctor frowned at that. "No, I do the hand grabbing. That's my job. That's always me!"

Clara brought them to the window that led out to a small section of roof. The Doctor was the first one out and he was quick to help Adelaide through the window thanks to her skirt so that the Time Lady could help Clara. He, meanwhile, ran to the edge of the roof and looked over, glancing over his shoulder when he realized that Clara hadn't come through yet. "Come on, quickly! What are you doing?"

"Her bustle is stuck," Adelaide told him, grabbing both of Clara's hands and pulling until the woman stumbled out. They nearly fell but the Doctor caught Adelaide, letting her keep Clara from hitting the ground.

"Thanks," Clara said, grinning, before she stepped back. "What's the plan?"

"Who said we've got a plan?"

"Course you've got a plan. You took that." She pointed at his umbrella.

"Maybe I'm an idiot."

"You, maybe. But she's clever. Really clever."

He raised his eyebrows. "Are you?" the Doctor tossed her the umbrella. "If we've got a plan, what is it? You tell us."

"That's the way to do it!" the ice governess called, nearing them.

"Is this a test?"

Adelaide nodded. "Yes."

She glanced back at the ice governess. "What will it do to us?"

"Kill us."

"That's the way to do it!" the woman turned into a snow flurry, blowing through the window and reforming on the other side.

"So, come on then," the Doctor prompted. "Plan. Do we have one?"

"Oh, I know what your plan is. I knew straight away." She threw the umbrella back.

"No, you didn't." Back again.

"Course I did." Back.

"Show us." And forth.

"Why should I?" Back.

"Because we'll be dead in under thirty seconds," Adelaide reminded them. "Do we have a plan?"

"If we'd been escaping, we'd be climbing down the building," Clara started speaking quickly, working through it as she spoke. "If we'd been hiding, we'd be on the other side of the roof. But no, we're standing right here."

"So?"

"So…" Clara smirked and hooked the bottom of the umbrella to the base of the ladder that led to the TARDIS, pulling it down. "After you."

The Doctor gestured for the two of them to go first. "After you."

"After you," Adelaide told him. "We're wearing dresses." For a second, the Doctor didn't look overly bothered by the thought. But then he blinked, leaning back slightly, as it registered. "Up you go."

The Doctor scrambled up the ladder, with Adelaide joining a few moments later, and Clara pausing on the very end to look back at the now fully-formed ice governess. "I understand you're the previous governess. I regret to inform you the position is taken." She tapped the ladder with the umbrella. "Goodnight." It rose into the air, carrying her up to the base of the staircase, where the Time Lords helped her off. "So you can move your cloud? You can control it?"

"No," the Doctor scoffed. "No one can control clouds, that would be silly. The wind, a little bit."

"Kazran Sardick and his cloud belt?" Adelaide reminded him and the Doctor pointed at her, corrected.

Clara looked down as the ladder started to shake. "She's following us."

He nodded. "That's the idea. Keep her away from the snow." He turned, darting up the staircase. "So, barmaid or governess, which is it?"

"That thing is after us, and you want a chat?"

He shrugged. "Well, we can't chat after we've been horribly killed, can we?"

They reached the top of the staircase, making Clara look around. "How did we get up so high so quick?"

"Clever staircase, it's taller on the inside." The Time Lords stepped onto the cloud, though Clara was much more careful.

"What am I standing on, what's this made of?"

"Superdense water vapor," Adelaide said, sonicing the entrance to close the hole in the clouds. "Should keep her for a moment."

"Do you actually live up here on a cloud, in a box." Clara walked up to them as the Doctor unlocked the TARDIS door.

"We have done for a long time now."

"Blimey, you really know how to sulk, don't you?"

He pouted. "I'm not sulking."

"You live in a box!"

"That's no more a box than you are a governess." The Doctor stepped into the TARDIS, walking up to the console.

Clara scoffed. "Oh, spoken like a man. You know, you're the same as all the rest. Sweet little Clara, works at the Rose and Crown, ideas above her station. Well, for your information, I'm not sweet on the inside, and I'm certainly not…" he stepped into the TARDIS as the Doctor flicked on the lights, revealing how big it actually was inside "little

"It's called the TARDIS," Adelaide explained, walking past her to join the Doctor at the console. "It can travel anywhere in time and space."

"And it's ours."

Adelaide glanced at the Doctor for that. Given his expression, she knew that he knew that technically he was the only one who owned the TARDIS. That she was only there because he let her. In some ways, she was no better than a companion.

But he could have said the TARDIS was just his. He should have said it. And he didn't.

They'd certainly bonded after losing the Ponds, both seeming to close in on themselves in response, but they had yet to restart their relationship.

And if Adelaide was being honest…she wanted to.

"But it's…" Clara breathed, in shock. "Look at it, it's…"

The Doctor nodded. "Go on, say it. Most people do."

Clara turned and ran out of the TARDIS, clearly running around it before returning inside. "It's smaller on the outside."

The Time Lord blinked. "Okay, that is a first."

"Is it magic? Is it a machine?"

"It's a ship."

"A ship?"

He patted the console. "Best ship in the Universe."

"Is there a kitchen?" Clara joined them at the console.

"Another first."

"I don't know why I asked that. It's just…I like making soufflés."

The Time Lords glanced at each other. "Soufflés?"

Clara moved so that her back was to the doors, hands on her hips as she looked at either Time Lord as they stood on opposite sides of the console. "Why are you showing me all this?"

"You followed us, remember? We didn't invite you."

"You're both nearly a foot taller than I am. You could've reached the ladder without this." She held up the umbrella. "You took it for me. Why?" she threw it at the Doctor.

"I never know why," the Doctor said, sighing slightly. "I only know who." He took a TARDIS key from his pocket, closing Clara's hand over it for her.

Clara frowned at it. "What's this?"

"Me. Giving in." He glanced up at Adelaide, stepping back.

Clara shook her head. "I don't know why I'm crying."

"I do. Remember this. This right now, remember all of it. Because this is the day. This is the day…this is the day everything begins." He took Adelaide's hand, smiling at her.

Adelaide wanted the Doctor to be happy. She may have preferred to travel the universe alone most of the time, but she knew that the Doctor needed a companion. And she knew that, sometimes, she needed one too.

Perhaps Clara would help, like Amy had, to repair whatever regeneration had broken.

They weren't looking when the ice governess grabbed Clara, but they both spun when the woman screamed, dragged back. "Clara! Clara!"

Clara struggled, trying to push the woman off. "Get off of me!"

Adelaide winced, something finally occurring to her. She'd been so distracted by the Doctor, she hadn't thought it through. "Water vapor doesn't stop ice."

"Get off!"

The Doctor ran after them. "Let her go. Let her go now! Now!"

"Get off me!"

"No! Clara!"

But he couldn't do anything to stop the ice governess from falling through the cloud and taking Clara with her. He ran back to the TARDIS, Adelaide already turning to try and get the TARDIS to catch Clara but…they were too late.

|C-S|

The Time Lords didn't want to leave the TARDIS. Leaving the TARDIS would mean they had to see Clara lying there, barely being brought back to life via Sontaran technology. Even Adelaide felt guilty about it. Because it was her fault. She'd been the one to sonic the cloud, she'd been the one not to think about the fact that dense water vapor wouldn't keep out an ice governess. It was her fault that the ice governess had been able to break through, her fault that Clara had been taken down with her.

Even Clara being there was her fault. The Doctor had tried to take responsibility, but Adelaide knew that everything that had resulted in Clara being there had been her fault. It was her fault they'd gone investigating at all.

And she wouldn't let him take responsibility for her death. He already blamed himself for Amy and Rory, she wouldn't let him also take responsibility for something that wasn't his fault.

Vastra entered the TARDIS, walking up to the Time Lords. They were both scanning the broken ice governess. "Isn't the creature still a danger?" Vastra asked them. "It could reform."

"No, not in here."

"Then you should both be with Miss Clara."

"She's going to be fine." The Doctor took Adelaide's hand. Since she wouldn't let him blame himself, he'd started telling her that Clara would be fine, that she'd survive, that Vastra would be able to save her. Adelaide knew it wasn't true, but she let him try anyway. "I know she is. She has to be."

"Doctor, her injuries are severe," Vastra knew Adelaide well enough to know that the woman wasn't holding out any unreasonable hope about the situation. "That equipment will bring back anyone for a while, but long-term…"

"It was our fault."

"My fault."

"We are responsible for what happened to Clara."

"I am responsible."

He squeezed her hand. "She was in our care."

Vastra looked at Adelaide. "What is the point of blaming yourself?"

"None," he told her. "Because she's going to live."

Adelaide put the ice into a box and they both stepped out of the TARDIS. Clara was lying on a table in the study, with Strax working on her. It seemed to have actually sustained her for a little, but they all knew that it wouldn't last for long. She gave the box to Jenny as the Time Lords stepped up to Clara.

The Doctor put a hand on Clara's forehead, stroking back a bit of her hair. "Hey. Hello."

"They all think I'm going to die, don't they?" Clara asked them.

He nodded. "And I know you're going to live."

"How?"

"I never know how. I just know who." He took her hand, pressing the key into it again before kissing it.

"The green lady. She said you were the saver of worlds once. The protector of many. Are you going to save this one?"

He smiled. "If we do, will you come away with us?"

"Yes."

"Well then. Merry Christmas." The Doctor stepped back, kissing Adelaide's hand before straightening his bow tie. Adelaide took the ice box from Jenny and they both walked back to the door where Simeon stood. "She has in her hand a piece of the Ice Lady." Adelaide held it up so that Simeon could see it. "Everything you need to know about how to make ice people. Is that what you want?" He nodded. "See you at the office."

They ran back to the TARDIS, but Vastra came in before they left. "So then, Doctor, Adelaide, saving the world again. Might I ask why? Are you making a bargain with the Universe? You'll save the world to let her live?"

"Yes. And don't you think, after all this time and everything I've, we've, ever done, that we're owed this one?"

Adelaide shook her head at the Doctor. "The universe doesn't make bargains."

"It was our fault."

"My fault."

The Doctor took Adelaide's hand again. "You won't let me only blame myself, but I won't let you do it either."

She didn't smile. "You sound like someone who wants to save the world."

"And protect many."

They nodded at each other and stepped apart, both starting to pilot the TARDIS. Together.

|C-S|

The Doctor was sitting with his feet up on Simeon's desk when the man entered. Adelaide was standing with Vastra behind him as they all watched the noticeably silent snow globe.

"You promised us something. Have you brought it?" Simeon asked them.

"Big fella here's been very quiet while you've been out," the Doctor nodded at it. "Which is only to be expected considering who he really is." He pointed at Adelaide, who held up the box of ice to the globe. "Do you know what this is, big fella?"

"I do not understand these markings."

"A map of the London Underground, 1967," the Doctor explained. "Key strategic weakness in metropolitan living, if you ask me, but then I have never liked a tunnel."

"Enough of this. We are powerful, but on this planet we are limited. We need to learn to take human form." The Doctor started to sonic the globe, raising its voices pitch until it sounded more like a child. "The governess is our most perfect replication of humanity."

Vastra frowned. "What's happening to its voice?"

"Stripping the disguise," Adelaide said.

"No, stop! Stop that. Cease, I command you!"

"It sounds like a child."

She nodded. "It is a child; Simeon as a child, specifically. The snow has no voice without him."

Simeon fell back against the desk, eyes wide. "Don't listen to them," the snow called. "They're ruining everything!"

"How long has the Intelligence been talking to you?"

"I was a little boy. He was my snowman. He spoke to me."

"But snow doesn't talk, does it?" Adelaide asked. "It's just a mirror."

"It just reflects back everything we think and feel and fear. You poured your darkest dreams into a snowman and look, look what it became."

Vastra stepped forward. "I don't understand."

"It's a parasite feeding on the loneliness of a child and the sickness of an old man," Adelaide nodded.

"Carnivorous snow meets Victorian values and something terrible is born."

"We can go on and do everything we planned," the snow said.

"Oh yes, and what a plan. A world full of living ice people. Oh dear me, how very Victorian of you."

"What's wrong with Victorian values?" Simeon sneered, grabbing the box from Adelaide and moved to open it.

Adelaide reached out a hand, stopping him before he went too far. "Are you sure?"

"I have always been sure." He opened it and then the memory worm inside bit him, making him fall to his knees.

"Good," the Doctor nodded. "I'm glad you think so, since your entire adult life is about to be erased. No parasite without a host. Without you, it will have no voice. Without the governess, it will have no form."

Simeon sunk even further. "What…what…what's happening? The snow cried. "What's happening? What did you do?"

"There's nothing left for you to mirror," Adelaide told it. "Goodbye."

"What did you…did you…" the lights started to fade…but then they flashed back, the voice deepening before. "Did you really think it would be so easy?"

The Time Lords froze. "That's not possible. How is that possible?"

Vastra put her hand on her sword, tensing. "Doctor? Adelaide?"

He scanned the snow. "But you were just Dr. Simeon. You're not real. He dreamed you. How can you still exist?"

"Now the dream outlives the dreamer and can never die. Once I was the puppet." Simeon shot up, pale and covered in ice, and the Doctor pulled Adelaide back from him. "Now I pull the strings! I tried so long to take on human form. By erasing Simeon, you made space for me. I fill him now!" Simeon shoved Vastra to the side, lunging at the Time Lords. But though the Doctor was in the front, he shoved the man down and grabbed Adelaide. "More than snow, more than Simeon. Even this old body is strong in my control!" He started to force her to the ground, his touch freezing her skin. The Doctor tried to pull Simeon off but he couldn't do anything, he couldn't protect Adelaide. "Do you feel it? Winter is coming!" She screamed, trying to fight him herself, trying to do anything even though she knew she couldn't do more than the Doctor. "Winter is coming!"

But suddenly Simeon fell off of her, letting her roll away and stand. The Doctor pulled Adelaide further away, both of them looking at Simeon in confusion. "Doctor, Adelaide, the globe," Vastra called, making them look at it. The snow inside the globe had melted, leaving a puddle of water. "It's turning to rain. All of it, the snow, look." Vastra knelt at Simeon's side. "He's dead. What happened?"

Adelaide frowned, not able to move that far towards the globe or Simeon because the Doctor had grabbed her hand and was determined to never let go. "The snow can only mirror, which means there's something so strong it's drowning everything else." She forced him to walk to the window, and they both opened the window. "There was a critical mass of snow at the house."

The Doctor tasted the rain, grimacing. "It's salty."

"Saltwater rain?" Vastra called, stepping up behind them.

"It's not raining," the Doctor said. "It's crying. The only force on Earth that could drown the snow." His eyes widened. "A whole family crying on Christmas Eve."

|C-S|

They brought the TARDIS back to the Darkover house, rushing out. Strax stepped up before they got too far. "I'm sorry. There was nothing to be done. She has moments only."

The Time Lords nodded and walked to Clara's side. "We saved the world, Clara," the Doctor told her, "you helped. We really, really did."

Clara smiled. "Are you going back to your cloud?"

The Doctor squeezed Adelaide's hand. "No more cloud. Not now."

"Why not?"

Adelaide gave the girl a small smile. "It rained."

Clara nodded. "Run. Run, you foolish boy, you clever girl. And remember."

The clock struck midnight, and Clara closed her eyes for the last time.

"It's Christmas," Digby said, sniffling, hugging his father. "Christmas Day."

|C-S|

The Time Lords, Vastra, and Jenny stood a bit of a way apart from the graveyard where Clara had gone, the Latimer family standing before it and mourning her. The trio of aliens and human had wanted to give the family some privacy at this time.

"And what about the Intelligence?" Vastra asked the Time Lords. "Melted with the snow?"

"It learned to survive beyond physical form," Adelaide reminded them. "It's likely not gone."

Jenny shrugged. "Well, we can't be in much danger from a disembodied Intelligence that thinks it can invade the world with snowman."

"Or that the London Underground is a key strategic weakness."

The Doctor frowned, looking down at Simeon's business card. "The Great Intelligence. Rings a bell. The Great Intelligence…"

The Latimer's left Clara's grave and the Time Lords stepped up to pay their own respects, only to stop, staring at her name. "Doctor?" Jenny asked them. "Adelaide?"

Clara Oswin Oswald.

"We never knew her name," the Doctor breathed. "Her full name. Soufflé girl. Oswin. It was her." He shook his head. "It was soufflé girl again." He turned to Adelaide. "We never saw her face the first time with the Daleks, but her voice, it was the same voice?"

Jenny frowned at them both. "Who?"

"The same woman, twice," Adelaide said. "And she died both times…the same woman…"

Vastra stepped forward. "Doctor, Adelaide, please, what are you talking about?"

"Something's going on. Something impossible, something…" He grinned, turning to Vastra and Jenny. "Right, you two stay here. Stay right here. Don't move an inch." They ran off, back to the TARDIS.

"Are you coming back?" Vastra called after them.

"Shouldn't think so!"

"But where are you going?"

They paused at the door to the TARDIS, looking back. "To find her. To find Clara." The Doctor spun Adelaide around, laughing. "Ha ha ha!" They ran into the TARDIS.

Even Adelaide could admit that when the universe that gave you something akin to a coincidence, you listened to it.

Never ignore a coincidence.

"But Clara's dead." Jenny turned to Vastra. "What's he talking about, finding her?"

Vastra smiled, shaking her head. "I don't know, but perhaps the universe makes bargains after all."

 **A/N: It's already clear that Adelaide's going to have a very different relationship with this companion than with Amy and Rory ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: I'm quite excited myself :)_


	13. The Bells

**The Bells**

The Doctor sat on a swing in a park, spinning in place. Adelaide was standing beside him, leaning against the side. They'd both decided to take a break from searching for Clara, as Adelaide had finally succeeded in convincing him that if there would be a third Clara she would find them.

After all, the universe had a way of ensuring that fixed events actually occurred. If they were meant to see Clara again, they would. There was the chance that they would find her on their own by searching, but there was no way to know if that would work. If there even was another Clara out there.

She did think it was too convenient for there to be two Claras in two completely separate times who both died in ways connected to the Time Lords. But she didn't actually have a theory about who Clara could have been.

As they didn't have any leads, the Time Lords had just decided to take a break and spend some time on Earth, seeing if there was a chance they'd just bump into Clara randomly, as they'd done the last times.

"Hello," a young girl said and they both looked down, finding that a child leaped onto the swing beside the Doctor.

"Hello," the Time Lords said in unison.

"Why are you at the swings?"

The Doctor grinned. "Why shouldn't we?"

"Because you're old!"

The Doctor looked prepared to contradict her, but Adelaide spoke first. "Yes, that is very true." Both Time Lords were old in years now, but Adelaide looked the oldest. The Doctor had tried to tell her that she didn't look old, not really, but she'd reminded him that she was quite aware of how she looked and had no issue with it.

"My mum says I shouldn't talk to strange people."

"Ah, your mum's right."

The girl smiled. "Are you strange?"

"He's way past strange," Adelaide told her.

The Doctor nodded. "And she's more incredible than strange."

"Are you lonely?"

"Why would we be lonely?"

"Because you're sad." She looked at both of them. "Have you lost something?"

"No."

The girl nodded. "When I lose something, I go to a quiet place and I close my eyes, and then I can remember where I put it."

"Good plan."

"I'm always losing things. I lost my best pencil, my schoolbag, and my gran, and my mojo."

The Doctor frowned. "Your mojo?"

"I got it back, though."

"Hey, that's good."

She nodded. "What did you lose?"

"Our friend," Adelaide said. "We met her twice and lost her both times. Now we don't know if we'll find her again."

"Have you been looking?"

"Everywhere."

She frowned. "That's sad."

"It is a bit." The Doctor looked over, seeing a woman who looked like this girl scanning the crowd of children. "Hey, is that your mum?"

The girl looked over, sighing. "Yeah, I'd better go and see if she's all right."

"Yeah, I think you better had."

The girl jumped off her swing, but she stopped facing the Time Lords. "How are you going to find her?"

"Well, the first two times we met her, we just sort of bumped into her, so we thought maybe if we just wandered about a bit, we might bump into her again." He shrugged. "You know, like destiny, sort of."

The girl made a face. "That's rubbish."

"Don't tell her that," the Doctor jerked a thumb at Adelaide. "It was her idea originally." Adelaide raised her eyebrows at him, making the girl giggle. "Maybe we should find a quiet room and have a good think about it instead."

"That would be better," the girl laughed. "Goodbye!"

The Time Lords nodded. "Goodbye."

She turned and started to leave, but then came back. "I hope you find her again."

Adelaide sighed. "So do we."

The girl ran off, and the Time Lords returned back to the TARDIS, not knowing that Adelaide had been right all along.

|C-S|

The Time Lords stood before the Doctor's sketch of Clara. After a bit more of failing to find Clara, they'd decided to listen to the young girl and seclude themselves in a thirteenth-century monastery to ponder Clara's last message. The Doctor, using some past connection, had gotten the monks to welcome them, even Adelaide.

"Ahem," an Abbott said from behind them, making them glance back. The Doctor was wearing monk's robes, wanting to fully get in the zone, while Adelaide was still dressed as normal. "I'm sorry to intrude, but the bells of Saint John are ringing."

The Doctor flung his hood off, turning. "We're going to need horses."

|C-S|

The Time Lords rode towards where they'd left the TARDIS on separate horses, another monk following. They all hurried into the small stone building, down into the cave the TARDIS was in. The monk held a torch, but Adelaide had her own, something the Doctor had insisted on.

However, as they stepped up to the TARDIS they both frowned. The ringing was coming from the phone on the front of the TARDIS, which wasn't supposed to work. "That's not supposed to happen." The Doctor pulled it open, taking out the phone and holding it for both of them to hear. "Hello?"

"Ah, hello," a woman greeted them, sounding relieved. "I can't find the internet."

"Sorry?"

"It's gone, the internet. Can't find it anywhere. Where is it?"

"The internet?"

"Yes, the internet. Why don't I have the internet?"

The Doctor frowned at Adelaide. "It's 1207."

"I've got half past three. Am I phoning a different time zone?"

Adelaide nodded. "In a way, yes."

"Will it show up on the bill?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I dread to think. Listen, where did you get this number?"

"The woman in the shop wrote it down. It's a helpline, isn't it? She said it's the best helpline out there. In the universe, she said."

"What woman?" Adelaide asked. "Who was she?"

"I don't know. The woman in the shop. So…why isn't there internet? Shouldn't it sort of be there?"

The Doctor rubbed his forehead. "Look, listen, we're not actually, it isn't…" he sighed. "You have clicked the wifi button, yeah?"

"Hang on. Wifi…"

"Click on the wifi, you'll see a list of names. You see one you recognize?"

"It's asking me for a password." She started to have a conversation with someone else, letting the Doctor lower the phone for a second to exchange a look of confusion with Adelaide.

"Is it an evil spirit?" the monk asked them.

"A woman," the Doctor whispered, like saying it quietly would keep Adelaide from hearing. In response, the monk crossed himself, and Adelaide snatched the phone from the Doctor.

"Hang on a mo…" the woman said, speaking to them again. "Run you foolish boy…you clever girl…and remember…"

The Time Lords eyes widened. No. It couldn't be…

"One…two…three…"

It was Clara.

"What did you say?"

"Don't shout!" Clara snapped. "Now you've made me type it wrong. It's thrown me out again. What do I do? How do I get back in?"

But Adelaide had already hung up the phone, the Doctor opening the TARDIS and them both running inside.

|C-S|

"It's just a thing to remember the password," Clara mumbled into her phone, "'run you foolish boy, you clever girl, and remember.'" She frowned when there was a loud banging on the door downstairs. "Hang on!" she hurried down the steps, squinting through the glass. "Hello? Yes, I hear you." One of the people started to hit the doorbell too, though it was clear that the second person was trying to pull the first one back. "Yep, ah ha." She opened the door to see the Time Lords, the Doctor still dressed as a monk. "Hello."

The Doctor grinned. "Clara. Clara Oswald."

"Hello?"

"Clara Oswin Oswald."

She frowned. "Just Clara Oswald. What was that middle one?"

"Do you remember us?" the Doctor gestured between himself and Adelaide.

"No. Should I? Who are you?"

"The Doctor," he pointed at himself, "Adelaide," and to the Time Lady. "No?"

"Doctor who?"

He made a face. "No, just the Doctor." He paused. "Actually, sorry, could you start all that again?"

"Could I what?"

"Could you just ask me that question again?"

"Doctor who?"

"Okay, just once more."

"Doctor who?"

He grinned. "Ooo, yeah. Ooo, do you know, I never realized how much I enjoy hearing that said out loud. Thank you."

Clara nodded. "Okay." And she shut the door in their face.

It was Adelaide's turn to make a face. "That was rude."

The Doctor started to knock on the door again. "Hey, no, Clara, please. Clara, we need to talk to you. Listen. Please. Please, we just need to speak to you."

Clara appeared on the intercom. "Why are you still here? Why are you here at all?"

"You phoned us," Adelaide told her. "You were looking for the internet."

"That was you?"

The Doctor nodded. "Of course it was us."

"How did you get here so fast?"

"We just happened to be in the neighborhood, on my mobile phone." He pointed back at where they'd parked the TARDIS.

Clara frowned. "When you say mobile phone, why do you point at that blue box?"

"Because it's a surprisingly accurate description."

The woman shook her head. "Okay, we're finished now."

"Oi, no, don't!" the Doctor pressed the button a few times before crossing his arms, sulking.

"You are dressed like a monk," Adelaide reminded him.

He nodded. "Right. Don't be a monk." He rushed off to the TARDIS, with Adelaide following at a much leisurely pace. She leaned against the TARDIS as she waited for him to emerge in a different outfit. He spun once he stepped out, letting her see his entire appearance. "What do you think?"

He'd decided on a similar outfit as before, though he'd traded his old jacket for a long purple coat and waistcoat.

"Less stupid." He pouted. "Come on." She walked back to the front porch, knocking on the door again. "Clara?"

"Hello?" Clara called, but that time there was no image on the monitor.

"Ah, see? Look, it's me. De-monked." The Doctor spun in another circle. "Sensible clothes. Can we come in now?"

"I don't understand."

"You just open the door."

"I don't know…"

"Of course you can."

"Doctor…" something wasn't right.

"…where I am." The Doctor froze. "I don't know where I am. Where am I? Please tell me where I am. I don't know where I am!"

Adelaide soniced the front door, letting them run inside. Clara seemed to be lying motionless on the ground, with a girl with a backward head on the stairs.

"I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am!"

The Doctor knelt by Clara's body, scanning her. "Clara? Clara?"

"I don't know where I am. I don't know where I am. I don't understand." Adelaide stepped closer to the girl with a spoonhead, as that was the only way she could describe what the back of the girl's head looked like. "I don't know where I am! I don't understand. I don't know where I am." Clara's face appeared in the disk. "Where am I? I don't know where I am."

The Doctor stepped up to Adelaide, flashing the girl until she flickered to the form of a robot. "Walking base station. Walking wifi base station, hoovering up data. Hoovering up people."

Adelaide looked around. "Computer."

The Doctor pushed past the base station, following the sonic signal until he found an open laptop. He grabbed it and hurried back down, starting to type. "Oh no, you don't." He was going to save her. Adelaide only stood over his shoulder, not knowing nearly enough about this sort of thing to help. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Not this time, Clara, I promise." A stream of light shot out of the base station, moving to Clara. After a second, she took a breath, coughed, and rolled over.

Adelaide hurried to her side. "It's alright, you're fine."

|C-S|

The Time Lords split up the tasks of brightening Clara's room for her so that she'd feel safer when she woke. Adelaide found flowers while the Doctor hunted down a pack of Jammie Dodgers. He took a large bite out of one of them before putting it back with all the rest and putting all of that beside Clara's bed. He turned to find Adelaide shaking her head at him, sighing, before putting a jug of water and the flowers down as well.

The Doctor, meanwhile, flipped open a well-worn book: 101 Places To See. There was a pressed maple leaf in the first page and the Doctor actually tasted it.

"What are you doing?" Adelaide hissed at him. "Why do you always have to taste things?"

"It's the best way to figure out what things are!"

"It's a maple leaf. There isn't much of a mystery here." She took the book from him, putting it back down.

|C-S|

Clara opened the window of her room to find the Time Lords on the street below, sitting before their blue box. The Doctor was working on something with her computer, while Adelaide was reading a book beside him and occasionally looking over at what he was doing. They had the robot in front of them, as they'd started to work on it earlier.

"Hello?" Clara called down to them, making both Time Lords look up and stand.

"Hello!" the Doctor cheered. "Are you alright?"

"I'm in bed."

He nodded. "Yes."

"Don't remember going."

"No, we didn't expect you would."

"What did I miss?"

Adelaide held up a notebook. "Angie called; she's going to stay over at Nina's."

"Apparently that's all completely fine and you shouldn't worry like you always do," the Doctor cut in. "For god's sake get off her back."

"Your dad phoned," Adelaide continued, "mainly about the government. He seemed very cross with them and the Doctor took several pages of notes, promising he'd look into it. He also fixed the rattling noise in the washing machine, I indexed the kitchen cupboards, and he optimized photosynthesis in the main flower bed."

"And assembled a quadricycle!" the Doctor added.

"Assembled a what?" Clara frowned, but Adelaide did too. She hadn't known about that.

"I found a disassembled quadricycle in the garage."

"I don't think you did."

He grinned, looking at Adelaide. "I invented the quadricycle. Ha!"

Clara just shook her head. "What happened to me?"

"Don't you remember?"

"I was scared, really scared. Didn't know where I was."

He nodded. "Do you know now?"

"Yes."

"Well then, you should go to sleep. Because you're safe now, we promise. Goodnight, Clara."

Clara eyed them. "Are you guarding me?"

"Well…yes. Yes, we are."

"Are you seriously going to sit down there all night?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I promise I won't budge from this spot."

"Well then, I'll have to come to you." Clara closed her window and disappeared back into her room.

|C-S|

Clara emerged somehow carrying three mugs and a chair, though as soon as Adelaide saw her she hurried over to help. The Doctor only looked up when Adelaide handed him a mug, grinning.

"We like your house," the Doctor told Clara, sipping the tea.

"It isn't mine. I'm a friend of the family." Clara sat in the chair she'd brought, with the Doctor handing Adelaide her book since he'd been holding it.

"But you look after the kids," the Doctor reasoned, nodding. "Oh yes, you're a governess, aren't you, just like…" He caught Adelaide's eye and went quiet.

Clara, however, attempted to make him tell her anyway. "Just like what?"

"Just like we thought you would be," Adelaide said, speaking for the Doctor.

Clara raised her eyebrows at them. "Are you going to explain what happened to me?"

"There's something in the Wi-Fi."

She nodded. "Okay."

The Doctor continued working. "This whole world is swimming in Wi-Fi. We're living in a Wi-Fi soup. Suppose something got inside it. Suppose there was something living in the Wi-Fi, harvesting human minds. Extracting them. Imagine that. Human souls trapped like flies in the world-wide-web. Stuck forever, crying out for help."

Clara frowned. "Isn't that basically Twitter?" Both Time Lords looked up at her. "What's that face for?"

"A computer can hack another computer," Adelaide reasoned. "It's possible that a living, sentient computer could hack people. Edit them."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because a few hours ago you knew nothing about the internet and you just made a joke about Twitter."

Clara paused, thinking about it, as her eyes widened. "Oh. Oh, that's weird. I know all about computers now in my head. Where did all that come from?"

The Doctor shrugged. "You were uploaded for a while. Wherever you were, you brought something extra back, which I very much doubt you'll be allowed to keep."

Adelaide, looking around them, stood quickly. "Clara, get into the box, now." There was a man standing suspiciously still across the street. She didn't even need to see his head start to turn, revealing that he was a base-station, to know what he was.

Clara just scoffed. "I'm sorry."

"Get inside."

"All of us?"

The Doctor searched for his key to the TARDIS. "Oh, trust us. You'll understand once we're in there."

 **A/N: Even if the first scene isn't technically part of the episode, I thought it was cute enough to include ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: All I'll say now is people against the Time Lords have already tried focusing on Adelaide. Perhaps this new group will try a different tactic ;)_


	14. The Leaf

**The Leaf**

"I bet I will!" she crossed her arms. "What is that box, anyway? Why have you got a box? Is it like a snogging booth?"

"Clara…" the Doctor paused, turning to look at Clara again. "A what?"

"Is that what you do, bring a booth? There is such a thing as too keen."

Lights began to flicker off down the street and Adelaide soundly cursed the fact that she didn't have a TARDIS key of her own. "Clara, look around."

Clara frowned. "What's going on? What's happening? Is the Wi-Fi switching on the lights?"

"The Wi-Fi is switching on the people," Adelaide said, pointing to the man across the street.

Clara's eyes widened, gasping. "What is that thing?"

"A walking base station," the Doctor said. "You saw one earlier."

"I saw a little girl."

"It must have taken an image from your subconscious, thrown it back at you. Active camouflage." He hit his forehead. "They could be everywhere."

"Doctor? Adelaide?" Clara pointed towards London, where even more lights had started to turn off. "What's going on? Our lights are on and everyone else's off. Why?"

The Doctor looked up at a sound above them. "Some planes have Wi-Fi."

"I'm sorry?"

There was a plane falling out of the sky heading directly for them. "We must be one hell of a target right now." The Doctor pulled the TARDIS key from inside his jacket. "You, me, Adelaide, box, right now!" He grabbed Clara and pulled her into the box, both Time Lords running to pilot. "Yes, it's a spaceship. Yes, it's bigger on the inside. No, we don't have time to talk about it."

"But…but…but…but it's…"

"Shut up, please," the Doctor snapped. "Short hops are difficult."

"Bigger on the inside. Actually bigger."

The Doctor pulled a final lever, making something spark, and then ran back to the door. "Right, come on."

"We're going to go back out there?"

Adelaide hurried up to the door. "We've moved; it's a spaceship."

"Away from the plane?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Not exactly." He threw the doors open, revealing that they had managed to land on the crashing plane. The Time Lords hurried to the cockpit.

"How did we get here?"

"It's a ship, Adelaide told you. It's all very sciency."

"This is the plane? The actual plane?" Clara frowned at the passengers. "Are they all dead?"

"Asleep," Adelaide told her, having scanned them when they first arrived.

The Doctor broke into the cockpit just as the plane hit more turbulence. "What is going on?" Clara asked them both, following the Time Lords in. "Is this real? Please, tell me what is happening!"

"I'm the Doctor. She's Adelaide. We're aliens from outer space. We're a thousand years old, we've got two hearts, and I can't fly a plane!" he spun to Adelaide. "Can you?"

"I thought you could!"

He looked to Clara, but the human shook her head. "No."

"Oh, fine. Let's do it together." The Doctor grabbed the controls and, somehow, managed to get the plane up just before it actually crashed into the rooftops. "Whoo!" He fell back. "Would a victory roll be too showy offy?"

Adelaide pulled the Doctor away from the controls before he could even attempt anything else as the pilots started to wake up again. "You are not going to do that."

"What the hell's going on?" a pilot groaned.

"Well, I'm blocking your Wi-Fi so you're waking up, for a start." He tapped the pilot's shoulder. "Tell you what, do you want to drive?"

Adelaide pulled the Doctor back to the TARDIS, moving past Clara as she, somehow, sipping the tea she'd managed to keep holding without spilling. "Okay…" Clara asked as they started to pilot again. "When are you going to explain to me what the hell is going on?"

The Doctor just looked at Adelaide. "Breakfast?"

"What?" Clara scoffed. "I ain't waiting till breakfast."

"It's a time machine," he reminded her. "You never have to wait for breakfast." They landed the TARDIS with a jolt, stepping out of the TARDIS into daylight and a round of applause. "Thank you, thank you. Yes, magic blue box." He pulled a fez from somewhere on his person and held it out. "All donations gratefully accepted. Roll up, give us your dosh. Pennies, pounds, anything you've got." He hands it to Clara as she finally stopped squinting. "Keep collecting. We need enough for breakfast." He grinned at Adelaide. "Just popping back to the garage."

Clara spun, "garage?", but the Time Lord had already vanished deep into the TARDIS. She looked to Adelaide. "What?"

"I didn't know we had a garage," Adelaide said, shrugging.

"So this is tomorrow, then. Tomorrow's come early."

Before Adelaide could answer, the Doctor drove out of the TARDIS on a motorbike with a small pod attached. "No, it came at the usual time. We just took a shortcut." He waved at the people who were still gathered. "Thank you, thank you. Tomorrow, a camel." He held a helmet out to Adelaide and then Clara. The human didn't need to be told that she was going to be the one riding in the pod.

They all climbed on, though the Doctor put the money from the fez into his pocket when Clara handed it to him, tossing the hat at a random observer. He seemed very pleased about the fact Adelaide had to wrap her arms around him, something Adelaide honestly didn't notice but Clara did.

|C-S|

They had just reached Westminster Bridge when Clara spoke. "If you've got a flying time machine, why are we on a motorbike?"

"I don't take the TARDIS into battle," the Doctor scoffed.

"Because it's made of wood?"

He pouted. "Because it's the most powerful ship in the universe and I don't want it falling into the wrong hands, okay?"

Adelaide glanced at Clara. "And because it's wood."

|C-S|

They sat around a table in a rooftop café that overlooked St. Paul's Cathedral. They'd all just finished eating breakfast, though the Doctor and Adelaide had shared something. It had originally been going good, but then the Doctor had taken the last bite of pancake without asking first.

Adelaide hadn't been happy about that.

Clara put down her fork as she finished. "So if we can travel anywhere in time and space, why did we travel to the morning. What's the point in that?"

"Whoever's after us just spent the entire night looking for us," Adelaide said, eating the final strawberry. "If you're tired…" Clara nodded "imagine how they feel."

The Doctor nodded. "They came the long way round." He'd pulled out Clara's laptop after Adelaide had just taken the plate in order to keep him from taking it all and had started to work on hacking again. "They've got to be close. Definitely London going by the signal distribution. I can hack the lowest level of their operating system but I can't establish a physical location. The security's too good."

"Are you an alien?" Clara asked them."

"We are, I already told you," Adelaide said. "Are you alright with that?"

"Oh, yeah. Think I'm fine."

"Good."

"So, what happens if you do find them? What happens then?"

He shrugged. "We don't know. We can't tell the future, we just work there."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "You don't have a plan?"

"Oh, you know what I always say about plans…"

"What?"

"He doesn't have one."

Clara frowned. "People always have plans."

"Yes…yes, I suppose they do." The Doctor looked at Clara for a second. "So tell us, how long have you been looking after those kids?"

"About a year, since their mum died."

"Okay. Why you? Family friend, I get that, but there must have been others. Why did it have to be you?" He frowned. "You don't really seem like a nanny."

Clara, instead of answering, grabbed the laptop from the Doctor. "Gimmie."

He just grabbed it back. "Sorry, what?"

"You need to know where they physically are. Their exact location."

"Yes…"

"I can do it." Clara grabbed it back, holding it out of his reach.

"Oi, hang on. I need that."

"You've hacked the lower operating system, yeah?" the Time Lord nodded. "I'll have their physical location in under five minutes. Pop off and get me a coffee."

He frowned. "If I can't find them, you definitely can't."

"They uploaded me, remember? I've got computing stuff in my head."

"So do I."

"I have insane hacking skills."

"I'm from space and the future with two hearts and twenty-seven brains."

"And I can find them in under five minutes plus photographs." She paused. "Twenty-seven?"

"Exaggeration," Adelaide said.

"Coffee, go get," Clara gestured towards the main café. "Five minutes, I promise."

"The security is absolute."

"It's never about the security, it's about the people." Clara started to type, moving at a speed that impressed both Time Lords. She glanced up when she felt them staring. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"Sorry, no, it's nothing. It's just, you're a nanny. Isn't that a bit, well, Victorian?"

Clara frowned. "Victorian?"

"You're young. Shouldn't you be doing, you know, young things, with young people?"

Clara eyed him since he appeared younger than Adelaide. "You mean like you, for instance?"

"No…no, I didn't."

Adelaide sighed, pulling the Doctor standing. "Come on."

They walked into the café together, going straight for the coffee bar. She also had to drag him away from the sweets. "Three more cappuccinos over there, please," she ordered, keeping a firm grip on the Doctor's hand.

"One moment, ma'am," the barista nodded, turning to the machine…before freezing, straightening. "You realize you haven't the slightest chance of saving your little friend."

The Time Lords stopped. "What?"

The barista flashed blue for a moment, smiling. "One moment, ma'am." He turned again and stopped. "I said, there's not the slightest chance of saving your little friend. And don't annoy the old man. He isn't, in fact, speaking." Another flicker of light and the man continued.

"I'm speaking," they turned as a woman behind them started to speak. "Just using whatever's to hand." The woman glanced out at the patio. "Oh, she's rather pretty, isn't she? Do you like her? Make her like you, too, if you want." The Doctor's jaw tensed, but the woman flickered again. "You alright, sir?"

He tightened his grip on Adelaide's hand. "Yes. Yes, fine." They ran back outside, where Clara was still working. "You okay?"

Clara nodded. "Sure. Setting up stuff. Need a username."

"Learning fast."

"Clara Oswald for the win. Oswin!" she typed that as her username, but the Time Lords stiffened, remembering the Dalek-Clara.

Without speaking, the Time Lords hurried back into the café. "Now I want you to take a look around," the waitress said, walking up. "Go on, have a little stroll and see how impossible your situation is. Go on, take a look. I do love showing off." The woman walked off, but a little girl stood up nearby.

"Just let me show you what control of the Wi-Fi can do for you. Stop!" Everyone in the café froze.

"We saw what you can do last night," the Doctor told her.

"And clear!" The café emptied.

"We can hack anyone in the Wi-Fi once they've been exposed long enough," the news reporter said.

"One of your walking base stations is here," Adelaide said.

"There's always someone close. We've released thousands into the world. They home in on the Wi-Fi like rats sniffing cheese."

The Time Lords walked up to the television. "I don't know who you are or why you're doing this, but the people of this world will not be harmed. They will not be controlled, they will not be…"

"The people of this world are in no danger whatsoever. My client requires a steady diet of living human minds. Healthy, free-range, human minds. He loves and cares for humanity. In fact, he can't get enough of it."

"It's obscene. It's murder."

"It's life. The farmer tends his flock like a loving parent. The abattoir is not a contradiction. No one loves cattle more than Burger King."

"This ends," Adelaide told her. "We are going to end this today."

"How?" the reporter asked. "you don't even know where we are."

"Who's doing this?" the Doctor asked. "Who is your client? Hmm? Answer me!"

But the television just flashed off, ending their conversation. Adelaide stepped back. "We need to get back to Clara." They ran back outside, only to find a base station with the Doctor's face and an unconscious Clara.

"Clara?" the Doctor rushed to her side. "Clara?"

|C-S|

Before she'd been taken, Clara had been able to locate the Shard as the headquarters of the mysterious controller of the Wi-Fi. The Doctor rode towards it as fast as he could on the motorbike, using the anti-grav abilities of the motorbike to scale the side of the building.

When Miss Kizlet, a woman who was mainly responsible for everything that had been happening, entered her office he had his feet up on her desk. "Do come in," she told him.

"Download her."

She glanced at the window, which he had crashed through. "Sorry about the draft."

"Download her back into her body right now."

"I can't."

He swung his legs off, standing and walking to her. "Yes, you can."

"She's a fully integrated part of the data cloud, now. She can't be separated."

He shrugged. "Then download the entire cloud. Everyone you've trapped in there."

She frowned. "You realize what would happen?"

"Yes, those with bodies to go home to would be free."

Kizlet nodded. "A tiny number. Most would simply die."

"They'd be released from a living hell. It's the best you can do for them, so give the order."

Kizlet scoffed. "And why would I do that?"

"Because I'm going to motivate you," he walked past her, "any second now."

"You ridiculous man. Why did you even come here? Whatever for?"

He grinned. "I didn't."

"What?"

"I'm still in the café."

|C-S|

The Doctor had the laptop set up in front of him with Adelaide standing behind him, Clara on the ground. "I'm finishing my coffee with Adelaide," the Doctor continued. "Lovely spot. You hack people, but me? I'm old-fashioned. I hack technology. Here's your motivation." Adelaide soniced the screen.

|C-S|

The base station Doctor pulled off its helmet, letting its head turn around. Kizlet cowered from it. "No, not me! Not me!"

There was a flash of light, bright enough that even the Time Lords could see it from where they were sitting.

|C-S|

They got confirmation that the plan had worked when Clara slowly started to wake up, but the Time Lords didn't wait. However, that night, when she looked out her window she found the blue box waiting again.

Clara knocked and heard Adelaide call from inside. "Come in!" She stepped inside, finding the Time Lords sitting together on the stairs, reading a book together. The Doctor had reading glasses on, though Adelaide honestly looked more like she needed it. Not that Adelaide was that old, but she did look older than the Doctor.

She walked up to the console, leaning on it as she watched them. "So, they come back, do they?"

"You didn't answer my question," the Doctor said.

"What question?"

"You don't seem like a nanny."

Clara sighed. "I was going to travel. I came to stay for a week before I left and during that week…"

"She died," Adelaide said, "and you're returning the favor."

He nodded. "You've got a hundred and one places to see, and you haven't been to any of them, have you? That's why you keep the book."

Clara grinned. "I keep the book because I'm still going."

"But you don't run out on the people you care about." The Doctor took off his glasses. "Wish I was more like that."

"Hindsight is a terrible thing," Adelaide mumbled, sighing.

"You know, the thing about a time machine, you can run away all you like and still be home in time for tea, so what do you say? Anywhere. All of time and space, right outside those doors." He nodded towards them.

"Does this work?"

"Eh?"

"Is this actually what you do? Do you just crook your finger and people just jump in your snog box and fly away?"

The Doctor made a face. "It is not a snog box."

Clara eyed the pair of them. "I wouldn't be so sure about that." She smiled. "Come back tomorrow. Ask me again."

"Why?"

"Because tomorrow, I might say yes." Clara walked back towards the door. "Sometime after seven okay for you?"

"It's a time machine. Any time's okay."

Clara nodded. "See you then."

She'd just reached the door when Adelaide called to her. "Clara? You had a leaf in your book. Why?"

"That wasn't a leaf. That was page one." She gave them a wave and left the TARDIS.

The Time Lords stayed seating for a few more seconds as they both considered Clara. "Right then, Clara Oswald…" the Doctor leaped up, twisting to help Adelaide stand before they both went to the console. "Time to find out who you are."

 **A/N: What a charming end to their first adventure together. Everything can only go up from here ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: I'm so glad you're liking them! I'm excited for these three too - writing Clara really made me love her._


	15. Then and That

**Then and That**

The Time Lords stood on one side of a street, watching a man they'd determined to be Clara's father walk with a map in hand. The wind was making it difficult for him, but he appeared to be managing. They'd decided to follow _this_ Clara's history, which was something they'd done with Victorian Clara, as far as they could.

This, apparently, was going to be the first time her parents met.

It did, honestly, remind the Time Lords of one of their first 'random' encounters; really, the first time they'd met after the war had been Adipose, but they'd run into each other on the street, just like they were fairly certain this couple would.

Of course, thinking about that did remind them of the fact it had been a fixed event. That the very universe had driven them to that street to see each other. That even that singular moment meant they were Aligned.

Neither spoke, but they both found themselves holding hands without thinking about it.

Once, learning they were Aligned had frightened them into pausing their relationship. But that thought, that instinct, had begun to change, particularly with the loss of Amy and Rory.

Maybe being Aligned didn't mean the commitment it meant on Gallifrey. Maybe they just needed to accept it and see what happened.

They watched a leaf - the leaf Clara had tucked into her book - hit the man right in the face. It knocked him into the road in shock, right into the path of a car.

Thankfully, Clara's mother was right there to pull him into safety. It made the Time Lords smile before they turned to return to the TARDIS.

|C-S|

The Doctor had insisted on taking an umbrella to keep Adelaide dry as they watched the moment of Clara's parents' proposal. The man had kept the leaf from their first meeting, which had touched the woman to no end.

Adelaide made the Doctor step away as the humans began to kiss, linking her arm through his in order to keep him moving. She took the umbrella from him too so that he could search his pockets for the TARDIS key, though the action reminded Adelaide of something.

"I've been meaning to ask," she said as the man continued to search, tossing a variety of wrappers and bolts out in his hunt. "Can I have a TARDIS key?"

He stopped, frowning. "You…you don't have one already?"

"Caroline had one. I never did."

"Really?"

"Are you accusing me of lying?"

He pulled out the key triumphantly and immediately handed it to Adelaide. "Want to do the honors?"

She smiled, taking it from him to open the TARDIS. They stepped inside together, arms still linked.

|C-S|

They were in the process of walking through a park together when the Doctor was hit, quite soundly, in the side of the face by a ball. He immediately went into a defensive pose, stepping in front of Adelaide, until he realized that it had been young Clara.

"Oh my stars!" Clara's mother gasped, running over. "Are you alright?"

He straightened, though he didn't move from standing in front of Adelaide. "Fine. Marvelous. Refulgent. Possibly a bit embarrassed." He frowned, looking at Adelaide. "That's not dangerous, is it?"

She frowned. "Not for you."

"Good. Phew."

Clara came over with her father, the man holding her hand. "Mate, I'm so sorry. She wants to be Bryan Robson."

The Doctor waved a hand. "No worries. My fault. No harm done."

Adelaide smiled at Clara. "Hello there, what's your name?"

"Clara," the girl said, sounding quite proud of the fact she was saying it herself.

"That's a wonderful name."

|C-S|

The mood was very different as the Time Lords watched Clara and her father mourning her mother in a graveyard. They'd followed her entire life to this point, dropping in for both important and seemingly normal events in an attempt to see if they could spot anything odd.

So far, they hadn't seen anything too out of the ordinary.

|C-S|

The Doctor walked around the console, staring at an image of Victorian Clara on the monitor. Adelaide was leaning against the railing as he paced. "She's just a girl. How can she be?" The scanner switched to Alaska Clara, an image they'd found searching that relative time. "She can't be. She is. She can't be. She's not possible." He looked to Adelaide. "Is she possible?"

She frowned. "I'm not certain. Coincidences do happen…"

"Not like this."

"No, not like this." She stepped forward, leaning against the console. "Doesn't that make you curious?"

He leaned against the opposite side, grinning at her. "You do love a mystery."

"Must maintain my identity as Sherlock Holmes."

The Doctor laughed, stood, and set the TARDIS to head to the Maitland home.

|C-S|

Clara walked around the console as the Time Lords worked, just keeping the TARDIS stable as she looked around. "So we're moving through actual time?" she asked them. "So what's it made of, time? I mean, if you can just rotor through it, it's got to be made of stuff, like jam's made of strawberries. So what's it made of?"

"Well, not strawberries."

"I would love if it was," Adelaide commented, making the Doctor look at her. "What? Sometimes food preferences are maintained through regenerations. And fob watches."

The Doctor nodded, seeming to make a mental note of that new bit of information.

"And we can go anywhere?" Clara asked, drawing their attention back to her.

"Within reason. Well, I say reason."

"So, we could go backwards in time."

Adelaide nodded. "And space, yes."

"And forwards in time."

"And space," the Doctor added. "Totally." He stopped, turning to face Clara. "So, where do you want to go, eh? What do you want to see?"

Clara stopped, frowning. "I don't know. You know when someone asks you what's your favorite book and straight away you forget every single book that you've ever read?"

He shook his head. "No. Totally not."

"Well, that's a thing that happens."

He shrugged. "And? Back to the question?"

"Okay. So…so…so…" she walked around the console, thinking, "so, I'd like to see…I would like to see…what I would like to see is…" she finally stopped near the doors. "What I would like to see is…something awesome."

|C-S|

The Doctor pulled Clara out of the TARDIS, having insisted that she keep her eyes closed. Adelaide closed the doors after them as he spoke. "Can you feel the light on your eyelids? That is the light of an alien sun. Forward a couple of steps." He rotated her a bit. "Okay. Are you ready?"

"Yes. No. Yes."

"Welcome to the Rings of Akhaten," he said, stepping back as Clara opened her eyes.

They'd landed on the asteroid belt of the impressively large sun. One of the rocks they could see had a city built on it. "It's…" Clara breathed, not able to find a word to describe the sight. The Doctor wrapped an arm around Adelaide's shoulders. "It is. It so completely is."

"But wait, there is more," Adelaide said, the Doctor holding up his watch for them both to see.

"More what?"

"Just wait…in about five, four, three, two…"

The asteroids shifted so that they could see a large golden pyramid on one close to the sun. "What is it?" Clara asked them.

"The Pyramid of the Rings of Akhaten. It's a holy site for the Sun Singers of Akhat."

She frowned. "The who of what?"

"Seven words orbiting the same star," Adelaide explained. "All of them share the belief that the Universe started here, on that planet."

"All life?"

She nodded. "In the Universe."

"Did it?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, it's what they believe. It's a nice story."

"Can we see it? Up close?"

The Doctor grinned. "Of course."

|C-S|

The Time Lords were a bit worried that the mixture of alien species would be a bit of a shock for Clara. The market was packed with an impressive combination of different species and all Clara seemed to be able to do for a moment was just drift after the Time Lords looking at everyone.

They'd been here before, though not with each other. They actually had a suspicion that they'd been there at the same time, though they hadn't interacted, as they both had vague memories of similar current events.

"Where are they from?" Clara asked them, walking up to the Doctor's side.

"Oh, you know, the local system, mostly."

"What do I call them?"

"Well, let's see…" he started to point at some. "Ah! There go some Panbabylonians. A Lugal-Irra-Kush."

"Some Lucanians," Adelaide said. "A Hooloovoo."

"Ah! Qom VoTivig!" he stepped up to one, exchanging a greeting, before stepping back into line with the two women. "That chap's a Terraberserker of the Kodion Belt. You don't see many of them around anymore. Oh! That's an Ultramancer." He grinned. "Do you know, I forgot how much I like it here." He looked at Adelaide. "We should come here more often."

She smiled. "I quite agree. I've missed it." One of the things Caroline hadn't inherited from her Time Lady self was a fear of crowds; Adelaide wasn't good in the dark or being completely and utterly enclosed, but she was good with crowds in general. Especially this one, which she was quite familiar with.

"You've been here before?"

He nodded. "Yes, yes, yes. She came here adventuring," he pointed at Adelaide as she stepped off to study one of the stands. "I came here a long time ago with my granddaughter." He dashed off, Adelaide noticing a second too late to grab him.

"Hang on!" Clara called after him, her and Adelaide finding him at a stall selling a type of fruit Adelaide didn't actually recognize.

"Exotic fruit of some description," he told Clara, scanning it with his sonic. "Right. Non-toxic, non-hallucinogenic. High in free radicals and low in other stuff, I shouldn't wonder." He held one out to Clara, who tasted it and made a face. "No?" He offered it to Adelaide instead. "I did pay!" She took it and he looked quite pleased when she enjoyed it.

Clara just shook her head at the pair of them. "So, why is everyone here?"

"For the Festival of Offerings. Takes place every thousand years or so, when the rings align. It's quite a big thing locally, like Pancake Tuesday." He walked off again, though Adelaide kept up better that time.

Clara, on the other hand, ran directly into an alien that started barking at her. "Oh! Er, Doctor? Adelaide?" It was the Doctor who reappeared, responding to the alien with a few quick barks. "What's happening? Why is it angry?"

"This isn't an it, it's a she," he corrected. "Dor'een, meet Clara. Clara, meet Dor'een."

"Dor'een?"

He shrugged. "Loose translation. She sounds a bit grumpy but she's a total love actually, aren't you? Yes, you are." He stepped back, Adelaide stepping up then. "No, actually, she's just asking if we fancy renting a moped."

Clara eyed the bike Dor'een gestured towards. "So, how much does it cost?"

"Not money," Adelaide said. "Something of sentimental value, like a photograph or love letter. The more treasured something is the more value it holds. It's called psychometry."

Clara gasped. "That's horrible."

"Better than using bits of paper."

"Then you pay."

"With what?"

She shrugged. "You're both a thousand years old. You must have something you care about."

"Technically, I'm just under a thousand," Adelaide said, making the Doctor stick out his tongue.

Clara turned away to look at one of the nearby stalls and the Doctor pulled Adelaide away to see another stall. They weren't overly worried about Clara anymore, as the woman seemed to have started to adjust to being around so many aliens.

"I'm actually surprised we never crossed paths on our travels before," Adelaide commented as the Doctor put down a pair of spectacles she'd shaken her head at. "We were some of the only Time Lords off Gallifrey, there should have at least been one time, if not multiple."

He shrugged. "The universe is a big place."

"But with so many fixed events…" he stopped when she said that, the pair of them staring at each other for a few seconds. "One would expect that we would cross paths at least once before the war ended. I mean, we were even likely here at the same time and we didn't see each other."

"Maybe we just kept crossing paths and just never actually met. Helped each other along in small ways without knowing. Maybe those were fixed events too. We just didn't know it then."

She plucked a bowtie from one of the stalls, studying it for a moment before holding it up to the Doctor and nodding. "Do you like it?"

He frowned. "Are you getting me a present?"

"Bit late for Christmas, yes, I know." Adelaide turned to the stall, exchanging some braided charm the Doctor recognized from one of their recent adventures over the two-hundred years without companions for the bowtie.

He grinned, taking the bowtie from her and swapping his old one out quickly. They looked very similar, but the new one was a dark blue (like a darker version of TARDIS blue) with green running through it, which he knew was the reason Adelaide had chosen it. "Thank you. I love it."

Adelaide stepped forward, straightening the bowtie for him. They stood there for a second longer than innocent before she stepped back.

For the longest time, she had tried to refuse her feelings for the Doctor. She'd tried to pretend that feeling anything close to love was a weakness, a flaw of logic. That it had been a result of a flawed fob watch. Something that could be rectified if she just found the right thing to do. But recently she'd started to realize that that wasn't the case. That she could still feel something for the Doctor without compromising her logic.

Adelaide wanted to be close to the Doctor, but…not in public. It wasn't the fact she was too close to the Doctor that made her step back, but the fact they were in public.

She supposed she'd had to think about her thoughts on such a situation because she'd never had a long-term relationship before. She'd never wanted one before the war; she'd just never seen anyone like that. It didn't help that she hadn't had many friends on Gallifrey or off. There had never been a person outside of her parents that she'd gotten to know to any extreme, so there had been no one she wanted to have that level of intimacy with.

And she didn't even see the Doctor like…that. She wanted to be close to him, but not in _that_ way. When they'd had a relationship, they hadn't _done_ anything. She hadn't wanted _it_ , but the Doctor never made it seem like he wanted _it_ either. They'd both been quite happy to cuddle and hold hands and kiss, but nothing _more_.

Honestly, she just wanted that again. It had been nice. Refreshing.

But not in _public_.

The Doctor went slightly red too, but Adelaide didn't know if it was for the same reason as her own reaction. "Now I feel like I should give you a present."

She held up her wrist, pulling down the sleeve slightly to show off the bracelet from her first actual Christmas. "You already have."

He grinned. "You're still wearing it."

"Of course I am." She smiled too, before looking around. "Where's Clara?" She wouldn't have been worried that any harm had come to the woman, but it had just occurred to her that there hadn't been any sign of her for a few minutes. Logic kicked in again and she regretted the fact she'd ever thought that a human experiencing aliens for the first time would be completely fine on their own that quickly.

The Doctor looked around too, also realizing they couldn't see her. "Um…" he pointed, spotting a bit of dark human hair in the distance. "There!"

They hurried up just as Clara watched a young girl being led away by two adults. "What have you been doing?" the Doctor asked her, grinning.

Clara looked after the girl for a second more before grinning, turning to look at the pair of them. "Exploring. Where are we going now?"

The Time Lords exchanged a look before heading off through the market again, though that time Adelaide kept a far closer eye on Clara.

|C-S|

They managed to reach the amphitheater just as the event was about to begin. The young girl was standing on a small pedestal in the center, facing the pyramid. "Shush, shush!" the Doctor told Clara, bringing her to a small space just the right side for three people in the crowd. "Sorry, sorry, excuse us, sorry, excuse us."

"Sorry, sorry," Clara added, managing to reach the spot. Adelaide sat in the middle of their small group. "Are we even supposed to be here?"

"Shush."

"But are we?"

"Shush!"

"Sorry," Adelaide told the crowd when a few turned at the loud sound the Doctor had ironically just made.

The girl, who did glance back at Clara before starting, began to sing. "Akhaten…lay down, my king. Sleep now eternal. Sleep, my precious king. Lay down, o god of Akhaten."

The Doctor managed to find a pamphlet at their feet. "They're singing to the Mummy in the Temple," he explained. "They call it the Old God. Sometimes Grandfather."

"O god of Akhaten…"

"What are they singing?"

"The Long Song," Adelaide said, reading the pamphlet as well. "A lullaby without end to feed the Old God and keep him asleep. It's been going for millions of years, with chorister handing to chorister, generation after generation."

The crowd began to hold out small objects. "What are they doing?"

"Those are offerings. Gifts of value. Mementoes to feed the Old God."

The various objects turned into golden light, drifting towards the sun.

"O god of…O god of…O god of Akhaten…sleep, my precious king." The audience began to join, the Doctor doing so quietly. "Lay down…" The girl gasped, cutting herself off as something rumbled in the distance. She spun, terrified, and a beam of light caught her, carrying her to the pyramid.

Clara gasped. "Okay, what's happening? Is that supposed to happen?"

"Help!" the girl yelled, flailing in an attempt to save herself.

"Is somebody going to do something?" she turned to the other aliens. "Excuse me, is somebody going to help her?" when she looked back at the Time Lords, they were already out of their seats and leaving the amphitheater. Clara rushed after them. "Why are we walking away? We can't just walk away! This is my fault! I talked her into doing this."

The Doctor stopped, turning to her. "Listen. There's one thing you need to know about traveling with us. Well, one thing apart from the blue box and two hearts. We don't walk away."

"Especially when a child is in trouble," Adelaide said, walking up to Dor'een. She barked at the alien and then turned back to Clara and the Doctor. "We need something precious."

Clara looked at them. "Well, you must have something. All the places you've seen, there must be something."

They both pulled out their sonics. "These," the Doctor said. "And we don't want to give them away because they come in handy."

"You're both a thousand years old and that's it? Your spanners?"

"Screwdriver and pen," he corrected.

Clara took a breath, pulling off one of her rings. "It's my mum's." She handed it to Dor'een, who studied it before nodding and stepping aside to give them access to the bike.

 **A/N: Aw, it seems as though the Time Lords are slowly, but steadily, letting themselves like each other again. That's always wonderful :)**

 **Quick note about Adelaide/Doctor and the aforementioned _it_ : I've always subscribed to the general idea of Time Lords being, essentially, a predominately demipanromantic asexual society (generally, no sexual attraction towards others, but some romantic towards any gender). As of yet, Adelaide never uses human terms to describe her orientation, I have always seen her as a sex-neutral demipanromantic asexual. For this story, that essentially just means no Doctor/Adelaide sexy times. As an asexual myself, I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone has about the idea, so feel free to ask.**

 **Typical me, trying to incorporate actual discussions/representation into works of fanfiction ;)**


	16. This and Then

**This and Then**

Somehow, they all managed to fit on the moped, flying into space towards the girl, who they learned through Clara was named Merry. Clara reached for Merry as they neared her, their hands just managing to touch, before she was sucked into the pyramid. "Merry!"

"Brakes!" Adelaide shouted, the Doctor just managing to jerk them to a stop right in front of the large door to the pyramid. But while the Time Lord leaped off, Clara didn't move from where she was clinging to Adelaide. "Time to let go."

"I can't." Adelaide looked back to see that the girl had her eyes closed quite tightly.

"Clara, you have to," she said.

"Why?"

"It's starting to hurt."

"Sorry!" Clara let go immediately, climbing off the bike.

Adelaide moved beside the Doctor, the Time Lord sonicing the door. "Oh, that's interesting. A frequency modulated acoustic lock. The key changes ten million zillion squillion times a second."

Clara stepped up. "Can you open it?"

"Technically, no. In reality, also no, but still, let's give it a stab." He moved back, but Adelaide stuck out an arm to stop him from actually running at the door.

"That is solid stone," she told him. "You're not going to break it."

He made a face but just started to sonic it instead. Adelaide did the same, though Clara looked back at the planet they'd just left. "How can they just stand there and watch?"

"This is sacred ground," Adelaide reminded her. She didn't like the fact they were messing up a planet's culture, but she didn't remember any part of the mythology involving sacrificing a child. And, given how terrified Merry had been, Adelaide didn't think the girl knew it would happen. Even then, before the Doctor, she likely wouldn't have interfered. But now, after traveling with the Doctor for so long, she couldn't just stand to the side as a child cried. She could stand aside for a lot of things, but not that.

And she was honestly a bit curious to learn what the source of that light had been and if there was any truth behind the mythology.

Clara frowned. "And she's a child."

"And he's a god."

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, he is to them, anyway."

Suddenly, Merry screamed. The Time Lords worked even harder to get the door to open as Clara rushed at it. "Merry! Merry, hold on! We'll be there soon! Doctor? Adelaide?"

'Yes, yes, yes, yes." His sonic made a sound, transmitting it to Adelaide's. "Oh, hello!"

"Hello what?"

"The sonics have locked on to the acoustic tumblers."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Meaning?"

"Meaning we get to do this." They turned back to the door, both using their sonics to push open the door. Merry turned at the sound, seeing them as they bent down to be seen through the crack. "Hello there," the Doctor grinned. "I'm the Doctor, this is Adelaide, and you've met Clara. We were supposed to be having a nice day out. Still, it's early yet." They struggled to keep the door up. "Are you coming, then? Did I mention that the door is immensely heavy?"

"Leave," Merry said. "You'll wake him."

"Quite heavy," Adelaide nodded. The Doctor was pushed to his knees from the weight of it, Adelaide joining him quickly after. "Clara?" she called and the human ducked under the door to go to Merry.

"Merry, we need to leave."

"No." Merry moved away. "Go away."

"Not without you."

"You said I wouldn't get it wrong and then I got it wrong. And now this has happened. Look what happened!"

"You didn't get it wrong," Clara tried.

"How do you know? You don't know anything! You have to go! Go now, or he'll eat us all."

Clara glanced at the mummy sitting in the glass case at the back of the room. "Well, he's ugly. But you know, to be honest…" she stepped a bit closer, looking back to Merry, "I don't think he looks big enough."

"Not our meat. Our souls." Clara stepped forward again, but Merry closed her eyes, focusing, and pushed Clara back against the glass, holding her in place. "He doesn't want you, he wants me! If you don't leave, he'll eat you all up too."

"Yes, and you don't want that, do you?" the Doctor said. "You want us to walk out of this really quite astonishingly heavy door and never come back."

Merry nodded. "Yes."

"I see. Right." He glanced at Adelaide, nodding. "Clara's right. Absolutely never going to happen." The Doctor rolled under the door first, Adelaide just managing to get through before the door closed.

"Did you just lock us in with the soul-eating monster?"

The Doctor helped Adelaide stand. "Yep."

"And is there actually a way to get out?"

"Before it eats our souls?" Adelaide asked.

"Ideally, yes."

"Probably." She shrugged. "There usually seems to be when the Doctor's involved."

Clara eyed the chorister who was still sitting before the 'god', singing. "Why is he still singing?"

"…Old God, rest your weary, holy head…"

"He's trying to sing the Old God back to sleep, but that's not going to happen." The Doctor stepped forward, addressing the man. "He's waking up, mate. He's coming, ready or not. You want to run." The chorister stopped, swallowing. "That's it, then? Song's over?"

"The song is over." The man stood. "My name is Chorister Rezh Baphix, and the Long Song ended with me." He bowed his head and touched his bracelet, teleporting out.

The Doctor nodded. "That's it, then! Song's over!" He soniced the glass case, making the mummy roar. "Ah ha! Look at that!"

"You've woken him!" Merry cried, the mummy starting to slam against the glass.

Clara tried to look behind her, as she was still trapped against the glass. "It's awake? What's it doing?"

"Oh, you know…having a nice stretch."

Adelaide shook her head at the Doctor. "Neither we nor you woke him, Merry. He's waking because it's his time to wake and feed."

"On you, apparently," the Doctor added. "On your stories."

"She didn't say stories. She said souls."

He shrugged. "Same thing. The soul's made of stories, not atoms. Everything that ever happened to us. People we love, people we lost. People we found again against all the odds. He threatens to wake, they offer him a pure soul. The soul of the Queen of Years."

Clara glanced at Merry, who was looking more and more terrified. "Stop it. You're scaring her."

"Good, she should be scared. She's sacrificing herself. She should know what that means."

Adelaide looked at the girl. "Do you know what that means?"

"A god chose me."

"It's not a god," the Doctor said, sighing. "It'll feed on your soul, but that doesn't make it a god. It is a vampire, and you don't need to give yourself to it." He knelt to Merry's height. "Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings." He moved to stand behind Merry, putting his hands on her shoulders. "Until eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Gejelh. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice. It is a waste."

"So…if I don't…then everyone else…"

"Will be fine," he told her.

"How?"

The Doctor smiled, stepping in front of her again. "There's always a way."

"You promise?"

"Cross my hearts." He crossed both of his hearts and held out a hand to Merry, who gripped it tightly and finally released Clara. Immediately the human stumbled to stand near Adelaide, staring in horror at the mummy. "Having a nice stretch?" The ground started to rumble beneath them. "Something's coming."

"The Vigil," Merry breathed.

"And what's the Vigil?"

"If the Queen of Years is unwilling to be feasted upon…"

"Yes?"

She swallowed. "It's their job to feed her to Grandfather." Three beings appeared in puffs of smoke, immediately terrifying Clara and Merry, as Clara grabbed Adelaide's arm in fear. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

The Doctor stepped forward. "Stay back. I'm armed. With a screwdriver." He aimed his sonic at them, but the Vigil just let out an acoustic blast, knocking him back and the sonic from his hand.

Before the Vigil could grab Merry, Adelaide used her sonic to create a shield between the child and them, letting her run back to Clara. As soon as he could, the Doctor leaped up to join Adelaide in keeping the shield up.

Clara grabbed Merry's shoulders. "You know all the stories. You must know if there's another way out."

"There's a tale. A secret song. 'The Thief of the Temple and the Nimmer's Door'."

Clara nodded. "And the secret songs open the secret door? How does it go? Can you sing it?"

Merry looked to the side, singing a few notes that made a door in the wall open. The Time Lords pushed the Vigil back even more, giving Merry and Clara enough space to run. "Go!" the Doctor shouted, and the two rushed out. The Time Lords managed to fling the force field out to trap the Vigil before running out as well.

"Where did they go?" Clara asked, looking back in to see that the Vigil had gone.

"Grandfather's awake," the Doctor shrugged. "They're of no function anymore."

Clara raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, you could sound happier about it."

There was an explosion from the sun.

"Actually, I think we made a mistake…" Adelaide said.

"What mistake?"

"We thought the Old God was Grandfather, but it appears that the Old God was just what triggered Grandfather's awakening."

Clara frowned. "Sorry, a bit lost. Who's the Old God? Is there an Old God?"

"Unfortunately, yes," the Doctor pointed towards the sun, which was now impressively and dangerously active.

Clara gasped. "Oh my stars…what do we do?"

"Against that? I don't know. Do you know? I don't know?" he looked at the others, specifically Adelaide. "Any ideas?"

"But you promised. You promised!"

He nodded. "I did. I did promise."

Merry shook her head. "He'll eat us all. He'll spread across the system, consuming the Seven Worlds. And when there's no more to heat, he'll embark on a new odyssey among the stars."

Clara glanced at the star. "I say leg it."

"Leg it where, exactly?" Adelaide asked her.

"Don't know. Lake District?"

"Oh, the Lake District's lovely," the Doctor grinned. "Let's definitely go there. We can get scones. They do great scones in 1927…" a face had started to form in the sun, and the Time Lords were staring at it.

"You're going to fight it, aren't you?"

"Regrettably, yes. I think we may be about to do that."

Clara nodded. "It's really big."

He shrugged. "I've seen bigger."

"Really?"

The Doctor gave her a look. "Are you joking? It's massive."

Clara stepped forward. "I'm staying with you."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. I can assist."

"No," Adelaide told her, "you can't."

"What about that stuff you said? 'We don't walk away'."

"No, we don't walk away." The Doctor took Adelaide's hand, not really seeming to think about it. "But when we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run as fast as we can and we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow." He nodded at Clara. "Now, off you pop. Take the moped. We'll walk."

The Time Lords walked off together, Clara and Merry watching them leave in silence. They stepped through a small door to the side directly opposite the sun. "Any ideas?" he asked Adelaide quietly.

"It takes memories," she told him, eyeing the sun as it developed even more features, like it was growing.

The Doctor nodded. "Lordy…"

Before they stepped forward, they started to hear Merry singing from the planet. "Okay, then. That's what we'll do. We'll tell you a story." The Doctor stepped forward, Adelaide staying beside him. "Can you hear them? All these people who've lived in terror of you and your judgment? All these people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves, to you. Can you hear them singing? Oh, you like to think you're a god…"

"But you're not a god," Adelaide cut in. "You're a parasite made from the jealousy, envy, and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them."

"On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow." The Doctor glanced at Adelaide, and she nodded. "So, come on, then. Take ours. Take our memories. But I hope you've got a big appetite, because we have lived two long lives and we have seen a few things."

The sun reached out its energy and touched them, drawing things from them. The Time Lords took hands, spread their arms, and stood against it.

"We walked away from the last Great Time War," Adelaide said.

"We marked the passing of the Time Lords. I saw the birth of the universe."

"And I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time."

"No space."

"Just me."

"I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a madman," the Doctor nodded.

"I've watched universes freeze and creations burn."

"We've seen things you wouldn't believe. We have lost things you will never understand." The Doctor squeezed her hand, latching onto it, holding it with all of their strength. To the bond of the Time Lords Victorious. "And we know things! Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken."

"Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze!"

"So come on, then. Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!"

The sun tried to, it swirled around them, trying to consume it, but it was too much. It went dark, exploding in upon itself. The Time Lords fell to their knees, breathing hard, wishing for victory.

But they didn't have it. The sun started to regain its strength, started to live again.

The Time Lords couldn't do it, they didn't have the strength anymore. The sun hadn't taken their memories, but it had taken some of their strength.

They were saved by Clara stepping forward, having returned on the moped. She walked to the edge, holding out the leaf that she'd kept tucked inside her book. "Still hungry? Well, I brought something for you. The most important leaf in human history…the most important leaf in human history." The sun started to smile, its face fully formed again. "It's full of stories, full of history. And full of a future that never got lived. Days that should have been that never were. Passed on to me." The sun started to reach her, latching onto the leaf. "The leaf isn't just the past, it's a whole future that never happened. There are billions and millions of unlived days for every day we live. An infinity. All the days that never came. And these are all my mum's."

The leaf started to dissolve into light, like the rest of the memories the people had offered. "Well, come on then," the Doctor called, the Time Lords standing. "Eat up. Are you full? I expect so, because there's quite a difference, isn't there, between what was and what should have been. There's an awful lot of one, but there's an infinity of the other."

The leaf completely dissolved, drifting over to the sun. "And infinity's too much for you."

The parasite sun imploded, overcome.

|C-S|

The TARDIS landed outside the Maitland home barely five minutes after they'd left.

"Home again, home again, jiggity jig!" the Doctor cheered as Clara opened the door, looking outside.

"It looks different."

He shrugged. "Nope. Same house, same city, same planet. Hey!" He grinned at Adelaide. "Same day, actually, not bad. Hole in one."

"You do know that's not supposed to be surprising for a Time Lord, right?"

Clara walked back up to the console, looking at them. "You were there. At mum's grave. You were watching. What were you doing there?"

"Don't know. We were just making sure."

She frowned. "Of what?"

"You remind us of someone."

"Who?"

"Someone who died," Adelaide said.

"Well, whoever she is, I'm not her, okay? If you want me to travel with you, that's fine. But as me. I'm not a bargain basement stand-in for someone else. I'm not going to compete with a ghost."

The Time Lords shook their heads, though it was the Doctor who spoke. "No." He held out Clara's mother's ring. "They wanted you to have it."

She took it, frowning. "Who did?"

"Everyone. All the people you saved." He smiled. "You. No one else, Clara."

Clara smiled, slipping the ring on, and left the TARDIS. The Time Lords were left alone together, but it wasn't for long.

They set the TARDIS to the next time they were going to see Clara, set to figure out her mystery.

Together.

 **A/N: What a positive point for our Time Lords to end on :)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _lautaro94: I can confidently say that there will be no children in this story, not only because the Doctor and Adelaide aren't into sex and thus won't be physically reproducing. I'm so glad that you actually liked how the twins were incorporated into the Singer's story! That means the world to me as a writer :)_

 _14: Hello fellow ace, and you're very welcome. That is one blessing of being a writer; I can help make the representation that everyone deserves. 3_


	17. Another Idea

**Another Idea**

When Clara bounced into the TARDIS, she was shocked to find that the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. There was just Adelaide sitting on the stairs looking back into the TARDIS, which Clara could guess the Doctor had just vanished into. "Hello?" she called, making Adelaide turn. "What's he gone and done now?"

"The TARDIS made a very strange sound and he has gone off to investigate." Adelaide stood, coming to lean against the console. "Hopefully he won't be gone long; he's quite excited to see where we're going next."

Clara nodded, stepping up to the console. "Can I ask you a question? While Chin is gone." Adelaide nodded. "Are you two a…thing?"

"That is a very personal question."

Clara's eyes widened and it occurred to Adelaide how big the human's eyes actually were in comparison to her face. "I didn't want to offend you…"

"I'm not offended." Adelaide sighed. "The Doctor and I have a very complicated relationship. Once, many years ago," many centuries, for them, "we were a…thing. But not anymore. Not like that."

"You still travel with him though."

"Like I said, complicated."

"What happened?"

"Too personal." For some reason, Adelaide was being reminded of the students she used to teach in the Academy. Her favorites had always been those who would ask questions or come to see her after class in order to discuss something. It made those years as she waited for the Council to give her permission to leave Gallifrey to travel a little bit more bearable.

Not enough to have made her want to have a companion of her own before the Doctor, but it had been enjoyable.

"Sorry." Clara was quiet for a few seconds. "If you ever want to talk about it, or anything, really, I'm happy to listen."

"You will learn quickly that I am not the one who likes to talk."

"Reason behind the complication?" Clara smirked as Adelaide blinked. "For the record, I think you and the Doctor make a good couple. Very cute together."

"I fixed it!" the Doctor shouted, running into the room from the completely opposite direction he'd left it. "Point for Doctor!"

"We don't have a point system," Adelaide reminded him. "Besides, you're the only one who fixes issues."

He cheered. "I'm winning!" Adelaide just sighed. The Doctor darted up to the console, rubbing his hands together. "Now, where to this time?" Automatically, he looked to Adelaide for an idea, making Clara smile.

The human had an idea.

|C-S|

The fact the Doctor went silent after stepping out of the TARDIS shouting "Viva Las Vegas!" informed Adelaide that they hadn't actually landed in Vegas. But there wasn't anything she could do about it, as Clara had already stumbled out of the TARDIS as the submarine they'd landed in jolted, making Adelaide leave the TARDIS too. She was soaked immediately, but she wasn't thrown against the control panel like the Doctor and Clara.

"Strangers on the bridge!" one of the men called.

"Who the hell are you?" the captain demanded.

Clara looked around them. "Not Vegas, then."

The Doctor grinned. "No. No, this is much better." He pushed his wet hair out of his face.

"A sinking submarine?"

"A sinking Soviet Cold War submarine," Adelaide corrected.

"Break out side arms!" the first man who'd shouted, likely first mate, said. "Restrain them!"

"410," another crewman called. "420. Turbines still not responding!"

The captain turned to him, frowning. "They've got to."

The Doctor held up his sonic, scanning the ship. "Ah! Sideways momentum. You've still got sideways momentum!"

The captain glanced at him. "What?"

"Your propellers work independently of the main turbines. You can't stop her going down but you can maneuver the sub laterally. Do it!"

"Get these people off the bridge now!" the first mate ordered, three men grabbing them.

"Just listen to him, for God's sake!" Clara said.

"Underwater ridge to starboard," Adelaide reported, having caught a glance at the Doctor's sonic.

That seemed to confuse the captain more. "How do you know this?"

"Look, we have just a chance to stop the descent if we settle on it. Do it!"

"600 meters, sir. 610!"

The Doctor nodded. "Or this thing is going to implode."

"Lateral thrust to starboard, all propellers," the captain ordered.

"Sir?"

"Now!"

"You're going to let this madman give the orders?"

"Lateral thrust!"

The crewman nodded. "Aye, sir! 660, 680…" the sub slowed, finally stopping with a shake, wedging against the ridge. "Descent arrested at 700 meters."

The captain turned to the Doctor with a nod. "It seems we owe you our lives, whoever you are."

The Doctor grinned, putting away his sonic. "I'll hold you to that. Might come in handy."

"Search them," the first mate ordered, though the men didn't move immediately. "Yes, I know, they're women. Now search them!"

The trio were pushed against a pole, pat down to varying degrees. "Are we going to be okay?" Clara mumbled to the Time Lords.

"Oh, yes," the Doctor nodded.

"Is that a lie?"

"Possibly," the Doctor admitted. "Very dangerous time, Clara. East and West standing on the brink of nuclear oblivion. Lots of itchy fingers on the button."

Clara shook her head. "Isn't it always like that?"

"Yes," Adelaide said, "but sometimes there are flashpoints, like here."

"Hair, shoulder pads, nukes. It's the Eighties. Everything's bigger." The Doctor squirmed as the men pulled everything out of his pockets: a Barbie, a ball of twine, and his sonic. Another man held Adelaide's sonic, though since it looked like a pen it wasn't so obviously strange. "I would like a receipt, please."

The Doctor's sonic was handed to the captain, who studied it. "What is this?"

There wasn't a chance to answer before the sub shifted to the side, throwing them all off balance. Adelaide reached for Clara as the woman stumbled, the Doctor reaching for the TARDIS as it dematerialized on its own.

|C-S|

Since the crew was not willing to engage a woman and the Doctor refused to put Adelaide in harm's way, he was the one attempting to explain their presence while she tried to see if Clara was okay as the woman was currently unconscious. It was a bit difficult to do without her sonic - Adelaide had never developed that skill in her own travels - which was why Adelaide had wanted the Doctor to do it instead.

"Captain, we didn't know the type of your ship out here," the Doctor tried to say, standing between Adelaide, Clara, and the crew. "Now, we need to get the pumps working to get her afloat."

"Yeah, we'll last till the rescue ship comes," the captain said.

"If it comes."

"Oh, the sinking is just a coincidence, is it?" the captain scoffed. "Who are you?" He grabbed the Doctor and pushed him against the wall.

Clara blinked awake and Adelaide helped her stand, not able to do any scans to ensure she was completely healthy without a sonic.

"Alright, Captain, alright," the Doctor held up his hands. "You know what?" he glanced at Adelaide. "Just this once, no dissembling, no psychic paper, no pretending to be an Earth Ambassador. Doctor, Adelaide, and Clara," he nodded at each of them, "time travelers. Clara, you okay?"

The human nodded. "Think so."

The captain frowned. "Time travelers?"

"You saw us appear out of thin air," Adelaide pointed out.

"I didn't," an older man, who'd been listening to music, mumbled.

The Doctor shrugged. "Your problem, mate, not ours."

"We were sinking," Clara said to Adelaide.

The Time Lady nodded. "Yes."

"What happened?"

"We sank."

Clara shook her head. "No, what happened to the TARDIS, I mean."

The Doctor waved a hand. "Never mind that. Listen, Captain, breath's precious down here. Let's not waste it, eh?"

"You're right. Maybe I can save a little oxygen by having you three shot!"

"What does it matter how we arrived?" Clara said, frowning. "The important thing is to get…" her gaze trailed, landing on something down the hall, "out…" Adelaide followed her gaze, pulling the human behind her.

An Ice Warrior.

The Doctor, however, didn't notice anything was wrong. "Exactly! Number one priority, not suffocating!" The captain stepped away too, but the Doctor had yet to realize what was happening. "Eh? Ah, oh, thank you." He clapped his hands. "Finally seeing sense. Now, what sort of state is the sub in?"

The Ice Warrior stopped behind the Doctor. "Doctor," Adelaide snapped, making him spin.

"Ah…" he stumbled back, but the Ice Warrior followed. "It never rains but it pours."

"We were drilling for oil in the ice," the old man said. "I thought I'd found a mammoth."

Adelaide shook her head. "It's not a mammoth."

"No."

"What is it, then?" Clara stepped closer to Adelaide.

"An Ice Warrior," Adelaide told her. "A native of Mars."

The Doctor nodded. "And we go way back. Way back."

"A Martian?" the captain scoffed. "You can't be serious."

"She's always serious," the Doctor told him. "I just take days off."

"Doctor!"

"Just keeping it light, Clara. They're scared."

"They're scared? I'm scared!"

One of the crew pointed their gun at the Ice Warrior, making him power up his own weapon. "No, no, no, no, no, no!" the Doctor shouted, running forward. "Please, please, wait, just…there is no need for this. Just hear me out! You're confused, disorientated, of course you are. You've been lying dormant in the ice for…for how long?"

"How long, professor?" Adelaide called to the old man.

"By my reckoning, five thousand years."

The Doctor nodded, whistling. "Five thousand years? That's a hell of a nap. Can't blame you if you've got out of the wrong side of bed. Look, nobody here wants to hurt you." He pushed down the crew's gun. "Please, just…why don't you tell us your name?"

"What are you talking about? It has a name?"

"Of course," Adelaide told him. "And a rank; this is a soldier and it deserves our respect."

The captain shook his head, spitting. "This is madness. That is a monster!"

"Skaldak," the Ice Warrior said.

Both Time Lords stiffened. "What did you say?" the Doctor said quietly.

"I am Grand Marshal Skaldak."

The Doctor let out a breath. "Oh no…" Skaldak growled, but before he could move electricity played over his armor, making him collapse. The second-in-command stood behind him with a cattle prod, having used the electricity to shock the alien. "You idiot! You idiot!" The Doctor looked back to the unconscious alien. "Grand Marshal Skaldak."

Clara glanced at him. "You know him?"

"Sovereign of the Tharsisian caste. Vanquisher of the Pobos Heresy. The greatest hero the proud Martian race has ever produced."

The captain raised his eyebrows. "So what do we do now?"

The Doctor stepped back to Adelaide, taking her hand for a few moments. "Lock him up."

|C-S|

"The Ice Warriors have a different creed," Adelaide explained to the small group that had gathered in the communications room. The Doctor was beside her, the two of them addressing Clara, the captain, the second-in-command, and the professor. "By their standards, Skaldak is a hero."

The Doctor nodded. "It was said his enemies honored him so much, they'd carve his name into their own flesh before they died."

Clara's eyes widened. "Oh, yeah. Very nice. He sounds lovely."

The captain rubbed his chin. "An Ice Warrior? Explain."

"There isn't time."

"Try me."

"The Ice Warriors are Martian reptiles who became cyborgs when Mars turned cold," Adelaide said. "They built themselves survival armor so they could exist in the freezing cold, but a sudden increase in temperature sends the armor haywire."

Clara nodded. "Like with the cattle prod thing."

"Like with the cattle prod thing," the Doctor agreed. "Bit of a design flaw, to be honest. I've always wondered why they never sorted it." He sighed. "Oh look, you've got us telling you about them and I said there wasn't time."

"Is he that dangerous?"

"This one is."

The second-in-command turned to the captain. "Why are we listening to this nonsense, Captain? These people are clearly enemy agents."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Huh?"

"Spies, Captain."

"Pretty bad spies, mate. I don't even speak Russian."

The second-in-command frowned at her. "What?"

"I don't…" Clara glanced at the Time Lords. "Am I speaking Russian? How come I'm speaking Russian?"

"Now?" the Doctor hissed. "We have to do this now?"

"Are they speaking Russian?"

"Seriously? Now?" He sighed. "It's the TARDIS translation matrix."

The second-in-command waved a hand at them. "In my opinion, Comrade Captain, this creature is a Western weapon."

"Are they…" Clara began.

"Yes, they're Russians."

The captain frowned. "A weapon."

"Survival suit," the second-in-command said, as though that explained his reasoning. "What is the alternative? The little green man from Mars?"

"Correction," the professor called. "It's a big green man from Mars."

"I don't appreciate your levity, Professor," the second-in-command sneered.

"Why does that not surprise me? Maybe they're telling the truth."

"The truth?"

The professor nodded. "Yes, a revolutionary concept, I know."

"It's essential that we inform Moscow of what we have found!"

"The radio's out of action, in case you hadn't noticed, Stepashin," the captain snapped.

"They have our last position. They will find us. When they do…"

"Yes?"

"Well, the Cold War won't stay cold forever, Captain."

"For God's sake, Stepashin, you're like a stuck record! We have other priorities right now. I want you back on repairs immediately. We need to keep this ship alive. Dismissed."

"Sir…"

"Dismissed, Stepashin." The second-in-command glared and stormed from the room.

"All we needed to do was let Skaldak go and he'd have forgotten us," the Doctor told the captain. "But you attacked him. You declared war."

"'Harm one of us and you harm us all'," Adelaide said. "The ancient Martian code." She pointed to the professor, who'd had a beeping sound coming out of his headphones for a few seconds. "Skaldak sent out a distress call."

"He will bring down the fires of hell just for laying a glove on him."

"Unless you talk to it?" the captain guessed, looking between the Time Lords.

"I'm the only one who can." Both Time Lords had had smatterings of interactions with the Ice Warriors, though the Doctor had had more in comparison. They'd discussed it in one of their few conversations about previous travels, before they'd realized how many times they'd been close to interacting.

"No. Out of the question. We're not losing you. I'll do it."

"What?"

"You can talk to it through me."

The Doctor shook his head. "Skaldak won't talk to you. You're an enemy soldier."

"And how would he know that?"

"A soldier knows another soldier. He'll smell it on you. Smell it on you a mile off."

The captain raised an eyebrow, eyeing the Time Lord. "And he wouldn't smell it on you, Doctor?"

The Doctor clenched a fist and would have taken Adelaide's hand if she'd been standing just a bit closer. "Just let me in there before it's too late. It can't be you or any of your men."

"Well, it can't be you."

"I can do it," Adelaide said, making the Doctor look at her. "I'm not a soldier." She'd never fought in the Time War. She'd never fought in any war, not really. Always left planets the moment there was any indication of conflict she hadn't read about, always avoided ones where something was actively happening. When the Time War had come, she'd been forced to stay on Gallifrey, but not forced to fight. Apparently, the Time Lords had not wanted to risk anything happening to her before they attempted to force her to use all her connections to help bring the wrath of the universe on the Daleks.

Even with the Doctor, nothing they'd encountered together yet could really be considered a battle, or her involvement that of a soldier.

And while she was the Time Lady Victorious, she didn't really think she'd won anything.

She'd just run away.

If she was any sort of soldier, she was Colonel Run Away. Because that was what she'd done. She hadn't fought, she'd run away and hidden. She'd won by accident, by abandoning her people.

She wasn't a soldier. Honestly, she didn't really know what she was, but it wasn't a soldier.

The captain eyed her, but Adelaide knew that the shift in his expression meant that he agreed.

A soldier could spot another soldier, after all.

The Doctor, however, went wide-eyed. "No!"

"The only other option is Clara, and I'm not putting her in danger." Adelaide took the Doctor's hand. "I'm going to be fine."

 **A/N: It was difficult to decide if Adelaide was going to let Clara speak with Skaldak or not, but I decided that it was more important to set up this distinct difference between the Time Lords ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Guest: I do have an idea of a future scene where the two of them, prompted by a particular someone, will actually sit down and talk about this issue, but since I haven't written it yet, I can't guarantee when the scene will be._


	18. Another Sub

**Another Sub**

In the end, the Doctor had refused to let Adelaide go in without a radio headset so that he could ensure she stayed safe. He'd also set up a security camera to watch her. Adelaide glanced at it as she stepped into the room.

She was a bit thankful that the Doctor was in her ear, as her negotiation skills were still not what she'd hoped they would be.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked her, sounding nervous.

"I'm fine," she hissed, stepping forward. "Grand Marshal Skaldak." She did a salute, putting her right fist to her left shoulder. "Sovereign of the Tharsisian caste." She moved forward, closer to where Skaldak was chained up. "Grand Marshal, we're sorry about this. It is not what you deserve."

Just as she finished speaking, the power in the ship cut out and Adelaide froze.

"Torch to your left," the Doctor said, suddenly calm, trying to keep her calm in the dark. Adelaide grabbed it and kept moving forward, taking a few deep breaths.

"You're a long way from home," she continued. "And five thousand years adrift in time. Please, let us help you. You are not our enemy."

"And yet I am in chains," Skaldak rasped.

"You are restrained until we can trust each other, Skaldak," Adelaide told him. "You would do the same in our position."

"I was Fleet Commander of the Nix Tharsis. My daughter stood by me. It was her first taste of action. We sang the songs of the Old Times. The Songs of the Red Snow. Five thousand years…now my daughter will be dust. Only dust."

Adelaide frowned, starting to turn around the room. Something was wrong…something that shouldn't have been wrong. "Skaldak, your people live on, scattered across the universe. And Mars will rise again. Just let us help you."

"I require no help. There will be no help."

"Adelaide?" the Doctor asked. "What's happening?"

She neared the armor, tapping the helmet to reveal that it was empty. "He's gone."

"Gone?" the Doctor was panicking now. "Gone? Gone? What do you mean, gone?"

"I mean he's left his armor."

"It is time I learned the measure of my enemies," Skaldak said, confirming it. "And what this vessel is capable of."

"Skaldak!" Adelaide shouted.

"Harm one of us and you harm us all. By the Moons, this I swear!"

Adelaide ran from the room, hearing the Doctor and the captain speaking through the headset. "We've never seen one do this before!" the Doctor said. "Actually, I've never seen one out of its armor before."

"Neither have I," Adelaide called.

"Won't it be more vulnerable out of its shell?"

"No, it will be more dangerous." Adelaide heard the Doctor run out of the room, heard him rush down the corridor towards her. She just managed to duck out of the way as a bright green light blew past her and the Doctor hugged Adelaide when he neared her. "You're okay, you're safe."

"Yes, I am." Adelaide squeezed the Doctor and stepped back. "Where did he go?"

"That was cool," Clara said, stepping up to the Time Lady.

Adelaide poked the Doctor's shoulder. "Look at that, I'm cool this time."

"You've always been cool."

"Doctor? Adelaide?" the professor called, making them turn to him. "The signal. It's stopped."

Adelaide nodded. "Skaldak hasn't gotten an answer from his Martian brothers. He's given up hope."

"Hope of what?"

"Being rescued. He thinks he's been abandoned. He's got nothing left to lose."

The captain frowned. "But what can he do, stuck down here like the rest of us? How bad can it be?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at the man. "This sub's stuffed with nuclear missiles, Zhukov. It's fat with them. What do you think Skaldak's going to do when he finds that out? How bad can it be? How bad can it be? It couldn't be any worse." The sub shifted and water started to pour in, setting off alarms. The Doctor winced. "Okay. Spoke too soon."

|C-S|

To be honest, Adelaide wasn't overly comfortable with their current situation. They were trapped without the TARDIS in an enclosed area with a mysterious alien threat wandering about.

She couldn't help but keep being reminded of Midnight and the bus.

Adelaide knew that the reason Caroline had reacted like she did had been because the fob watch had already started to break and, when the Doctor had been in danger, her Time Lady self had reacted to attempt to save the other last of their species. That everything had just become too much for a little human brain to handle, especially when the human was already feeling stressed about the situation on her own.

But, unlike when they'd been transported via wormhole to a destroyed San Helios, these humans were touchy. They were dangerous. These humans were trapped on a bus with a mysterious unknown creature running around outside learning their weaknesses.

The Doctor seemed to have grasped that Adelaide was uncomfortable and was standing close to her, reminding her that he was there, that she wasn't alone. That they weren't going to let it be like Midnight.

The captain stood before his crew, informing them of what had happened. "Comrades, you know our situation. The reactor is drowned. We are totally reliant on battery power and our air is running out. Rescue is unlikely, but we still have a mission to fulfill. If the Doctor and Adelaide are right, then we are all that stands between this creature and the destruction of the world. Control of one missile is all he needs. We are expendable, comrades. Our world is not. I know I can rely on every one of you to do his duty without fail. That is all."

Clara turned to the Time Lords, who were all standing to the side. "Even if a missile did get launched, that wouldn't be it, would it?"

"'It'?"

"End of the world. Game over. I mean, what if they fired one by accident. What would happen then?"

"We told you, Clara. Earth is like a storm waiting to break right now," the Doctor said. "Both sides baring their teeth, talking up war. It would only take one tiny spark."

She frowned. "Yeah, but the world didn't end in 1983, did it, or I wouldn't be here."

"History's in flux," Adelaide explained. "It can be changed, re-written, to a degree."

The Doctor nodded, stepping up to the captain. "How many of us are left?"

"Twelve, and we can't find Stepashin."

"We split up and comb this sub. One team stays here to guard the bridge."

The captain frowned. "That's it? That's the plan?"

He shrugged. "Well, it's either that or we stay here and wait for him to kill us."

The captain blinked. "Okay."

Clara stepped closer to Adelaide. "Is it true you've never seen one outside of its shell suit?"

"It is the gravest dishonor for an Ice Warrior to leave its armor," she told the human. "Skaldak is desperate, and he's deadly."

"Will these help?" the professor asked, holding up their sonics.

"Ah!" the Doctor cheered. "You saved them!" He plucked them from him, handing Adelaide hers again.

"No, no, it was on the floor with this," the professor held up the Barbie from the Doctor's pocket too.

"Ah, professor, I could kiss you!"

"If you insist."

The Doctor blinked. "Later." He grabbed Adelaide's hand, the two of them hurrying down one of the halls. Clara and the professor followed them, watching as the Time Lords started to scan the surrounding area with their sonics.

"So," Clara said to the professor, looking for conversation as they walked, "why have you got a cattle prod on a submarine?"

"Polar bears."

She nodded. "Ah, right."

"We run across them when we're drilling. Can be quite nasty, you know."

Clara shivered. "I'd swap one for an Ice Warrior any day. Cuddlier."

The professor glanced at the Time Lords as the Doctor somehow managed to set off an alarm on the nearby controls. He rushed to fix it while apologizing to Adelaide quietly, though the Time Lady was already helping him. "Courage, my dear. I always sing a song."

Clara shook her head, not really able to hear him over the alarm. "What?"

"To keep my spirits up."

"Yeah, that would work, if this was Pinocchio."

"Do you know 'Hungry Like The Wolf'?"

"What?"

"Duran Duran, one of my favorites, come on."

Clara shook her head. "I'm not singing a song." Adelaide left the Doctor to working on the alarm to examine a nearby hatch, hearing a growl from above. "What was that?"

"Pressure," the Doctor said quickly, giving Adelaide a look.

The Time Lady nodded. "Just pressure; we are seven hundred meters down."

The professor waved a hand. "Don't worry about it. Think of something else." He started to sing. "I am hungry like the wolf…"

"I'm not singing!"

He frowned. "Don't you know it?"

"Course I know it. We do it at karaoke, the odd hen night."

"Karaoke? Hen night?" He shook his head. "You speak excellent Russian, my dear, but sometimes I don't understand a word you're talking about."

They all stiffened when the growling turned into snarls and a scream, though the Time Lords ran towards the sound. Clara and the professor hurried after them, stopping when they reached an open door. There were two torn apart bodies inside.

"Good God!" the professor gasped. "Torn apart. It's a monster, a savage."

Adelaide shook her head. "No, professor. Not savage: forensic. He's dismantled them to learn about your strengths and weaknesses."

The Doctor had been scanning the area as Adelaide spoke, trying to find a sense of Skaldak. "Come on!" He ran off again, though he stopped the humans once they reached a small set of steps. "Stay here."

Clara nodded. "Okay."

"Stay here. Don't argue."

"I'm not."

The Doctor frowned, what Clara was saying finally registering. "Right. Good." He nodded at Adelaide and both of them hurried up the stairs.

Clara watched them go with a shiver, and the professor sighed. "Oh, it's a young man's game, all this dashing about." He glanced at Clara, seeing her face. "Clara, what is it?"

"I was doing okay. I mean, I didn't go in there or anything, but I wasn't scared yet. It was still so much fun, and exciting, and interesting."

The professor nodded. "So what's the matter?"

She shivered again. "Seeing those bodies back there…it's all got very real. Are we going to make it?"

"Yes, of course."

|C-S|

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Adelaide found another room with another body, though this one had a wallet on the ground nearby with Stepashin's ID.

"Oh, Stepashin," the Doctor sighed.

There was the sound of feet running above them, and the Time Lords followed the bit of Skaldak they spotted in the distance.

"Oh, oh, oh, fast. He's fast," the Doctor mumbled.

|C-S|

Clara looked up when she heard the groaning again. "What was that?"

"Adelaide told you, it's just the boat settling," the professor said. "Tell me about yourself. What do you like doing?" Clara didn't respond. "Clara? Clara?"

Clara shrugged. "Stuff. You know, stuff."

"Stuff." The professor nodded. "Very enlightening. And the Doctor and Adelaide, what they said…is it true you're from another time? From our future? Clara?"

"Yes."

"Tell me what happens."

"I can't."

"Well, I need to know."

Clara shook her head. "I'm not allowed."

"No, please…"

"I can't!"

"Ultravox, do they split up?"

Clara blinked a few times. "Funny. You're funny." She'd just started to laugh when Skaldak's hands shot down and grabbed Clara's head from above.

"Let her go!" the professor shouting, firing a pistol at the ceiling. He ended up hitting Skaldak, making the alien release Clara. "See? I don't just like Western music." That time, Skaldak grabbed the professor's head just as the Time Lords ran up.

"No, please don't hurt him," Clara begged. "Please!"

"You attacked me," Skaldak snarled. "Martian law decrees that the people of this planet are forfeit. I now have all the information I require. It will take only one missile to begin the process. To end this Cold War."

The Doctor stepped forward. "Grand Marshal, there is no need for this. Listen to me…"

"My distress call has not been answered. It will never be answered. My people are dead. They are dust. There is nothing left for me except my revenge."

"There is something left for you, Skaldak," the Doctor said. "Mercy."

"Mercy?"

They were interrupted by the captain running up, aiming a rifle at Skaldak. "You must wear that armor for a reason, my friend. Let's see, shall we?"

Adelaide held out a hand. "Captain, wait."

"I will do whatever it takes to defend my world, Adelaide."

"Yes, but we are getting somewhere here. He was negotiating."

The Doctor nodded. "'Jaw-jaw not war-war'."

"Churchill?" the professor asked.

The Doctor pointed. "Churchill."

The captain sighed, raising his gun again. "Very well, we'll negotiate, but from a position of strength."

Skaldak laughed. "Excellent tactical thinking. My congratulations, Captain."

"Thank you."

"Unfortunately, your position is not, perhaps, as strong as you might hope."

The Doctor frowned. "What do you mean?"

They heard a sound behind them and turned, seeing the suit standing there on its own. Skaldak dropped the professor and slithered into it. "He summoned the armor," Adelaide said.

"How did it do that?"

"Sonic tech, Clara," the Doctor explained, holding up his sonic. "The song of the Ice Warrior."

One of the crew started to fire at Skaldak's back, but it did nothing with the armor. Skaldak just turned and started to walk away, the Doctor running forward and pushing down the gun. "No!"

"My world is dead but now there will be a second red planet," Skaldak told them. "Red with the blood of humanity!"

"Skaldak!" the Doctor ran after him. "Skaldak, wait!"

But Skaldak ignored him, despite the crew continuing to shoot at him as he walked.

|C-S|

The group reached the control room as Skaldak pulled wires from the torpedo controls. "No!" the Doctor ran forward. "Skaldak, wait! Wait, wait!"

The captain aimed his gun at Skaldak. "He's arming the warheads!"

"Where is the honor in condemning billions of innocents to death?" the Doctor said. "Five thousand years ago Mars was the center of a vast empire. The jewel of this solar system. The people of Earth had only just begun to leave their caves. Five thousand years isn't such a long time. They're still just frightened children, still primitive. Who are you to judge them?"

Skaldak spun. "I am Skaldak! This planet is forfeit under Martian law."

"Then teach them! Teach them, Grand Marshal. Show them another way! Show them there is honor in mercy. Is this how you want history to remember you? Grand Marshal Skaldak, Destroyer of Earth. Because that's what you'll be if you send those missiles. Not a soldier, a murderer. Five billion lives extinguished. No chance for goodbyes. A world snuffed out like a candle flame!" Skaldak put his finger on the button. "Alright, alright, Skaldak, you leave me no choice. I'm a Time Lord, Skaldak. I know a thing or two about sonic technology myself." He held up his sonic.

"A threat?" Skaldak scoffed. "You threaten me, Doctor?"

"No. No, not you, all of us." He took a deep breath. "I will blow this sub up before you can even reach that button, Grand Marshal. Blow us all to oblivion."

"You would sacrifice yourself?"

He flicked his sonic, making the light red. "In a heartbeat." His other hand took Adelaide's, something Skaldak noticed.

"And your woman?"

"To ensure the future of the universe," Adelaide said, her jaw clenching at his comment.

Skaldak nodded. "Mutually assured destruction."

"Look into my eyes, Skaldak. Look into my eyes and tell me you're capable of doing this. Huh? Can you do that? Dare you do that? Look into my eyes, Skaldak. Come on. Face to face."

"Well, Doctor…" Skaldak opened his helmet and Adelaide squeezed the Doctor's hand. "Which of us shall blink first?"

Clara, glancing at the Time Lords, stepped forward. "Why did you hesitate? Back there, in the dark. You were going to kill this man, remember?" She touched the professor's shoulder. "I begged you not to, and you listened. Why show compassion then, Skaldak, and not now? The Doctor's right. Billions will die. Mothers, sons, fathers, daughters. Remember that last battle, Skaldak?" Clara had been listening in when Adelaide had been speaking with Skaldak before, watching the Doctor pace as he tried to keep himself calm while she was in danger. "Your daughter. You sang the songs."

Skaldak nodded, speaking quietly. "Of the Red Snows."

The sub shook again, making them all stumble. "What's happening?" Clara grabbed a wall, trying to stay standing.

"My people live!" Skaldak cheered. "They have come for me!"

The captain ran to the gauges. "We're rising. We're rising!"

"Six hundred meters," the professor said. "Five fifty…"

There was another jolt, and sunlight streamed through the portholes. "We've surfaced!" the Doctor cheered, raising his and Adelaide's clasped hands in celebration. "Your people have saved us."

"Saved me," Skaldak corrected. "Not you."

"Please, Skaldak," Adelaide said. "Go in peace."

Skaldak teleported out, making Clara grin. "We did it. We did it!"

But the Doctor shook his head. "No. No, no, no, no, no." He ran forward, messing with the controls. "It's still armed. A single pulse from that ship." He took a breath. "I'll destroy us if I have to. I will destroy us if I have to. Show mercy, Skaldak, come on, show mercy."

All they could do was stand there and wait to see what Skaldak would do. Clara rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet. "'I'm lost and I'm found and I'm hungry like the wolf…'"

A klaxon went off, turning all the lights green again. The Doctor turned off his sonic, hugging Adelaide tight without a second thought. "Now we're safe."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Ahem?" The Time Lords stepped apart. "Saved the world, then?"

The Doctor laughed, giving Clara a side-armed hug. "Yeah."

"That's what we do."

Adelaide nodded. "Yeah."

|C-S|

The time travelers, captain, and professor went to the top of the sub in order to see both where they'd come up and the fact the Martian ship was still hovering above them.

"The TARDIS!" Clara said, just remembering it. "Where's the TARDIS? You never explained."

The Doctor waved a hand. "Oh well, don't worry about that."

Clara frowned. "Stop saying that. Where is it?"

"Yeah, well…I wasn't to know, was I?"

"Know what?"

He shrugged, avoiding both Clara and Adelaide's eyes. "I've been tinkering, breaking her in." He glanced at Adelaide, who was making a face. "I'm allowed!"

"What did you do?" Clara asked him.

"I reset the HADS," he mumbled.

"Huh?"

"I reset the HADS."

"The what?"

"The HADS," Adelaide sighed. "The Hostile Action Displacement System. If a TARDIS comes under attack – gunfire, time winds, the sea – it relocates."

Clara shook her head at the Time Lord. "Oh, Doctor."

He shrugged. "Haven't used it in donkey's years. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Well, never mind, it's bound to turn up somewhere." His sonic made a sound, and he grinned at it. "Ooo, ha, see? Right on cue! Brilliant!"

"Brilliant!"

"The TARDIS is at the pole."

Clara nodded, looking around them. "Not far, then."

Adelaide leaned over, reading the sonic. "The south pole."

"Ah."

The Doctor looked at the captain. "Could we have a lift?"

The man just laughed, the professor and Clara joining in before the three of them descended back into the sub. The Time Lords stayed up there for a bit more, looking up at the Martian ship, though the Doctor did briefly mock the laughter. The Doctor gave the ship a salute before it flew away.

And then they just stood there, together, hands held and arms touching.

No stars sang, no universe brightened, but they didn't have to.

 **A/N: Even without Alignment, maybe these two can work out after all ;)**


	19. Scared

**Scared**

Clara glanced at Adelaide as the trio walked up to the large manor they'd landed at. It was in the middle of a storm and, while Adelaide was holding a light, the woman was clearly uncomfortable. "Are you alright?" she asked Adelaide quietly.

"I don't like the dark," Adelaide told her, the women sharing an umbrella. She wasn't overly looking forward to how dark this home was and was very thankful they were only going to be here to ask a few questions.

"You're scared of the dark?"

"Everyone's afraid of something," Adelaide sighed. "And yes, I know it's irrational."

"But having the Doctor nearby helps?" Clara nudged Adelaide. "Bet you wish you were sharing his umbrella right now."

Clara looked quite pleased that Adelaide actually laughed at that, joining in.

The Doctor looked back at the sound. "What are you two laughing about?"

"Your massive chin!" Clara told him, making the man make a face.

"Adelaide wouldn't laugh at my chin." He looked at Adelaide and his eyes widened when he saw her expression. "No…"

That just made her laugh more, which appeared to have been his goal.

They stepped up to the door, ringing the doorbell before the Doctor pulled them to the side. He waited until the door had opened before leaping out shouting "Boo!" Clara and Adelaide stepped up as well, Clara closing her umbrella. "Hello, we're looking for a ghost."

The man, who had a short scared looking woman beside him, frowned. "And you are?"

"I'm the Doctor," he held up his physic paper.

"Doctor what?"

"If you like. And this is Adelaide, and that's Clara." He darted into the room, running up to the table of equipment they could see, before spinning to face the man again. "Ah, but you are very different. You are Major Alec Palmer. Member of the Baker Street Irregulars, the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare." He leaned forward. "Specialized in espionage, sabotage, and reconnaissance behind enemy lines. You're a talented watercolorist, professor of psychology, and…ghost hunter!" he shook the man's hand, grinning. "Total pleasure. Massive."

The young woman shook her head. "Actually, you're wrong. Professor Palmer spent most of the war as a POW."

"Actually, that's a lie told by a very brave man involved in very secret operations. The type of man who keeps a Victoria Cross in a box in the attic, eh?" he pointed at the woman. "But you know that, because you're Emma Grayling, the professor's companion."

"Assistant," Emma corrected.

"It's 1974. You're the assistant and non-objective equipment." He looked to Clara. "Meaning psychic."

Clara nodded. "Getting that. Bless you, though."

The Doctor walked back over to Adelaide as Alec spoke, "relax, Emma. He's Military Intelligence. So, what is all this in aid of?"

"Health and safety! Yeah, the Ministry got wind of what's going on down here. Sent me to check that everything's in order."

Alec frowned. "They don't have the right."

"Don't worry, guv'nor, I'll be out of your hair in five minutes." He snapped at a machine, hurrying over to it. "Oh! Oh, look. Oh, lovely." Adelaide and Clara came to look over his shoulder. "The ACR 99821. Oh, bliss, nice action on the toggle switches. You know, I do love a toggle switch." He nodded. "Actually, I like the word toggle. Nice noun. Excellent verb."

Adelaide grabbed Clara's hand before the human could touch the switch the Doctor had been gesturing towards. "Don't touch the settings."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic, scanning the machine. "What's that?" Alec asked, spotting it.

"Gadget. Health and safety. Classified, I'm afraid. You know, while the back room buffoons work out a few kinks." He started moving towards the doorway.

"What's it telling you?" Emma asked, also frowning at the doorway.

"It's telling me that you haven't been exposed to any life-threatening transmundane emanations." He put away his sonic, spinning and clapping his hands. "So, where's the ghost? Show me the ghost!" There was a sound, and he grinned. "It's ghost time." He held out a hand for Adelaide, knowing her curiosity and fear were disagreeing at the moment about what she should do next.

Her fear told her to stay in this brightly lit room.

Her curiosity told her to investigate.

The dark was always less scary once you knew everything that was in it.

The Time Lords hurried into the hall together, linking arms. Alec ran after them. "I will not have this stolen out from under me, do you understand?"

"Yes, we do understand," Adelaide told him, speaking before the Doctor could.

Alec nodded. "I will not have my work stolen, then be fobbed off with a pat on the back and a letter from the Queen. Never again. This is my house, Doctor, and it belongs to me."

Clara laughed. "This is actually your house?"

"It is."

"Sorry. You went to the bank and said, 'you know that gigantic old haunted house on the moors? The one the dossers are too scared to doss in? The one the birds are too scared to fly over?" And you said, 'I'd like to buy it, please, with my money'."

"Yes, I did, actually."

Clara nodded. "That's incredibly brave." Something creaked in the dark, and Clara glanced behind her.

"Listen, Major," the Doctor said, "we just need to know what's going on here."

"For the Ministry?"

"You know we can't answer that."

Alec nodded, pushing past the Time Lords to lead them down to a small parlor. "Very well, follow me." They'd set up a board full of pictures and notes of the house and ghost in question. Alec hurried to get a few last bits of note as the Doctor spotted a camera.

"Photo!" he cheered, pulling Adelaide over to take a photo of the pair of them.

Clara and Emma, meanwhile, had gone to sit on a few nearby chairs. "So, what's an empathic psychic?" Clara asked the woman.

"Sometimes I…sense feelings, the way a telepath can sense thoughts. Sometimes, though, not always."

"So, would you be able to tell if someone was in l…"

She was cut off by the Doctor walking over. "The most compassionate people you'll ever meet, empathics. And the loneliest. I mean, exposing themselves to all those hidden feelings, all that guilt, pain and sorrow and…"

"Doctor," Adelaide called, having stayed closer to Alec to study the board. "Stop."

"Sorry."

"Come and see." He hurried over, resting an arm on her shoulder to look.

"Caliburn House is over four hundred years old," Alec explained, "but she has been here much longer. The Caliburn Ghast." He pointed to a picture of a hazy white figure. "She's mentioned in local Saxon poetry and parish folk tales. The Wraith of the Lady, the Maiden in the Dark, the Witch of the Well…"

"Is she real?" Clara asked, having come over with Emma. "As in, actually real?"

Alec nodded. "Oh, she's real. In the seventeenth century, a local clergyman saw her. He wrote that her presence was accompanied by a 'dreadful knocking, as if the Devil himself demanded entry'. During the war, American airmen stationed here left offerings of tinned Spam. The tins were found in 1965, bricked up in the servants' pantry, along with a number of handwritten notes. Appeals to the Ghast, 'for the love of God, stop screaming'."

Clara frowned at the images. "She never changes. The angle's different, the framing, but she's always in exactly the same position. Why is that?"

"We don't know," Alec said. "She's an objective phenomenon, but objective recording equipment can't detect her…"

"Without the presence of a powerful psychic," the Doctor guessed.

"Absolutely. Very well done."

"She knows I'm here," Emma whispered. "I can feel her calling out to me."

"What's she saying?"

"'Help me'."

Clara glanced behind them again, swearing she saw something in the doorway, but there was nothing there.

"The Witch of the Well," the Doctor repeated. "So, where's the well?"

Alec brought the Time Lords over to a table of the house's plans, pointing at a specific one. "A copy of the oldest plan that we could find. There is no well on the property. None that we could find, anyway."

The Doctor, nodding, walked back over to Clara, leaving Adelaide to look over the plans. He tapped her shoulder, making the human jump. "You coming?" he whispered.

"Where?" Clara replied just as quietly.

"To find the ghost."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Because you want to. Come on." He gestured for her to follow him.

Clara frowned. "Well, I dispute that assertion."

"Eh? I'm giving you a face. Can you see me? Look at my face."

"Fine." Clara sighed. "Dare me."

"I dare you. No takesies backsies." He walked up to Adelaide, taking her hand as they both walked towards the door. Clara grabbed a candelabra of her own as she followed them since Adelaide already had a light source.

"The music room is the heart of the house," Emma mumbled as they left, looking after them.

Clara stepped up to the Time Lords as Adelaide and the Doctor linked arms. "Say we actually find her. What do we say?"

"We ask her how she came to be whatever she is," the Doctor said.

"Why?"

"Because we don't know. And ignorance is…what's the opposite of bliss?"

"Carlisle."

The Doctor laughed. "Yes. Yes, Carlisle. Ignorance is Carlisle.

|C-S|

They'd managed to find the music room, which wasn't much of a music room; there was just a harp, music stands, and dust. The Doctor continued to scan the room, having been using his sonic the entire time they'd been traveling through the house. "Ah, the music room," he said. "The heart of the house. Do you feel anything?"

"No," Clara mumbled.

"Your pants are so on fire," the Doctor told her. "Lying isn't polite, and Adelaide won't like you if you're not polite." The sonic made a strange sound, which had Adelaide glancing back at him.

Clara shivered, looking around them again. "Do you feel like you're being watched?"

The Doctor shrugged. "What does being watched feel like? Is it that funny tickly feeling on the back of your neck?"

Clara nodded, stepping closer to Adelaide. "That's the chap."

"Then yes, a bit. Well, quite a big bit."

Clara looked around them as something creaked. "I think she's here."

The Doctor, meanwhile, had stopped by a door, watching his breath form a cloud. "Cold spot…spooky." He started moving back and forth, calling out the temperature as it changed. "Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold. Warm. Cold." He pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket, drawing a circle around the cold spot.

"Adelaide?" Clara said.

"What?"

"I'm not happy."

"No."

The Doctor kept moving around the room, looking for more cold spots. Clara, looking around them again, hurried with Adelaide after him. There was a thump, and they stopped. "What was that?"

There were more slamming sounds and all of the remaining candles were blown out, their breath visible at all times as there was a chill.

"Okay, what is that?" Clara asked, the thumping starting again.

"It's a very loud noise," the Doctor said, moving closer to Clara and Adelaide. "It's a very loud, very angry noise."

"What's making it?"

"I don't know." He glanced at Clara. "Are you making it?"

There was another thump and Clara jumped, grabbing the Doctor for a few seconds as they all moved back to an open archway. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"I may be a teeny, tiny bit terrified."

"Yes?"

"But I'm still a grown-up."

He nodded. "Mainly, yes, and…"

"There's no need to actually hold my hand."

Both Time Lords looked down. Clara was standing between the pair of them but she was turned slightly to the side, having grabbed the Doctor for a few seconds in her shock before letting go. But he wasn't holding her hand, and Adelaide wasn't either. "Clara…" he said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not holding your hand."

They looked over their shoulder, seeing a figure behind them in the flash of lightning. Clara screamed and they all ran forwards, running down the stairs back to the ground floor. Alec looked up when they entered, a black sort of disk hovering in the air behind him.

The Doctor and Adelaide pulled out their sonics. "Has this happened before?"

"Never."

"Camera," Adelaide called, grabbing it to take pictures of the disk as it spun, going faster and faster.

There was a scream, a shiny figure appearing. "Adelaide?"

She took more pictures, taking as many as possible.

"Help me!" a voice cried and Emma collapsed into Alec's arms.

The Doctor ran back to the stairs, flashing his sonic along the words 'help me' that had appeared while Adelaide used hers on the disk before they all vanished.

|C-S|

The Time Lords worked together to study the pictures they'd hung on a wire while Alec developed more. "We had a little peek at your records, back at the Ministry," the Doctor said. "You've certainly seen a thing or two in your time. Disrupting U-boat operations across the North Sea, sabotaging railway lines across Europe. Operation Gibbon…the one with the carrier pigeons, brilliant." He grinned at Adelaide. "I do love a carrier pigeon."

"I did my duty," Alec said, "but then so did thousands of others. Millions of others. I was just lucky enough to come back."

"Yeah, but how does that man, that war hero, end up here in a lonely old house, looking for ghosts?"

Alec was quiet for a moment. "Because I killed…and I caused to have killed. I sent young men and women to their deaths…but here I am, still alive, and it does tend to haunt you. Living, after so much of…the other thing."

|C-S|

Emma and Clara stood together, with Clara glancing at the other woman. "So, you and Professor Palmer, have you ever…you know?"

Emma shook her head, but she smiled. "No."

"Why not? You do know how he feels about you, don't you? You, of all people?"

She shrugged, sighing. "I don't know. People like me, sometimes we get our signals mixed up. We think people are feeling the way we want them to feel, you know, when they are special to us, when really there's nothing there."

Clara took a sip of her tea. "Oh, this is there."

"How do you know?"

"Because it's obvious. It sticks out like a big chin." Just like both Adelaide and the Doctor's feelings on the other. It was so obvious that, despite whatever had happened to their previous relationship, the Time Lords felt something for each other.

And Clara was going to help them see it.

|C-S|

"You see, I was alone and unmarried and I didn't mind dying," Alec continued, focusing on developing more film. "I mean, not for that cause. It was a very, very fine cause, defeating the enemy."

The Doctor nodded. "And if you could contact them, what would you say?"

"Well, I'd very much like to thank them."

The Doctor plucked a picture from the tray. "Ah ha. Ping!" he pinned it up, gesturing for Adelaide to come over.

"Who do you think she is?" Alec asked, joining as well.

"Not what he thought she'd be," Adelaide mumbled.

Alec glanced at her. "What did you think she'd be?"

"Fun," she said. "May we borrow your camera?"

Alec handed it to her, wisely trusting the Time Lady over the Time Lord, but it was the Doctor who gave a little wave as they left. "Ta."

|C-S|

Somehow, all three of them managed to fit underneath Clara's umbrella as they hurried back out to the TARDIS.

"I've got this weird feeling it's looking at me," Clara mumbled as they neared the TARDIS. "It doesn't like me."

The Doctor shrugged. "The TARDIS is like a cat. A bit slow to trust, but you'll get there in the end."

"I had a bit of an advantage," Adelaide said as the Doctor pulled her inside, leaving Clara to knock on the door in order to get in.

"Hey, you need a place to keep this," Clara held up her umbrella.

"I've got one," the Doctor said, spinning around to look for it. "Or I had one. I think I had one. Look around. Did I have one? Am I going mad?" He pointed at Adelaide. "Do we have one?"

"Yes, Doctor." Adelaide pointed at a point below the console. "You put it there after it 'got angry at you'."

"How did an umbrella stand get angry at him?"

Adelaide sighed. "I have no idea. There are some things I've just stopped questioning about him."

The Doctor slung an arm over Adelaide's shoulders before looking back at Clara to find the human shaking the umbrella dry IN the TARDIS. "No, not in here! How do you expect her to like you? That's very impolite."

Adelaide blinked. "Are you talking about me liking her or the TARDIS?"

Clara grinned at the pair of them. "Sorry. So, where are we going?"

"Nowhere. We're staying right here. Right here, on this exact spot, if I can work out how to do it." He stepped away from Adelaide, turning to the console, before turning back to her. "Do you know how to do it?"

"Vaguely." She hurried to the other side of the console, the pair starting to work together in a way that honestly impressed Clara.

"So, when are we going?"

The Doctor didn't seem to hear her, instead focusing on something Adelaide had just done. "Oh, that is good. That is top-notch."

Clara leaned against the console at a point she was guessing wouldn't interfere with what they were doing. "And the answer is?"

"We're going always," Adelaide told her.

"We're going always?"

"Totally!" the Doctor cheered, going beneath the console.

"That's not actually a sentence," Clara said to Adelaide.

"Well, it's got a verb in it," the Doctor shrugged, popping up with a bright orange spacesuit in hand. "What do you think?"

"Color's a bit boisterous."

The Doctor looked at it. "I think it brings out my eyes."

Clara shrugged. "Makes my eyes hurt." She glanced at Adelaide. "What do you think?"

"I think we should have chosen a better color for gallivanting around Mars," she said without looking, having recognized the suit from exactly where it was from.

The Doctor didn't say anything about that, but Clara made a mental note be careful when she mentioned Mars around either of them given how tense the room suddenly went.

|C-S|

The Doctor insisted on being the one who took pictures of the house through various points of history despite the fact that Adelaide had made it quite clear she'd done something similar to investigate someone who'd somehow managed to make a tear in the fabric of time. She was fairly certain it was something similar now, which was why she believed she was the one best suited for the main task.

But the Doctor had refused, claiming he could only find a spacesuit that fit him, her suit from Mars having been lost in one of the redesigns.

Thus, the best thing she could do to help him at the moment was stand waiting in the TARDIS doorway, opening the door more when he had to run back inside after taking a picture.

"Back off!" he called, pulling off his helmet. "Hot suit. Hot, hot, hot!"

Clara laughed. "When are we?"

"About six billion years ago," Adelaide told her.

The Doctor nodded. "It's a Tuesday, I think."

|C-S|

After popping in at various points throughout history, the Doctor had to put on the suit again to go out into the destroyed planet that was close to the end of Earth's time in the universe.

"Back in a mo!" he called as he walked towards the door.

Adelaide glanced at Clara. "Are you alright?"

"Totally. Peachy keen."

"Don't press any buttons or pull any levers or make any funny faces," the Doctor told Clara, spinning to point at her. "Actually, don't move. Stand completely still. Adelaide will deal with anything. Don't breathe. Well, you can breathe, but shallow breaths." He nodded and left, making Adelaide look at Clara again.

"Don't lie, Clara."

The human was watching the screen, watching the Doctor take a picture. "Have we just watched the entire life cycle of Earth, birth to death?"

"Yes."

"And you're okay with that?"

"Yes."

"How can you be?"

"I'm a Time Lady, Clara."

The Doctor walked into the TARDIS at that point, coming up to Adelaide but spotting Clara's tension. "Okay, context? Cheat sheet? Something?"

"I mean, one minute you're in 1974 looking for ghosts, but all you have to do is open your eyes and talk to whoever's standing there. To you two, I haven't been born yet, and to you two I've been dead one hundred billion years. Is my body out there somewhere, in the ground?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"But here we are, talking." Clara gestured between them. "So I am a ghost. To you two, I'm a ghost. We're all ghosts to you two. We must be nothing."

"No. No, you're not that."

"Then what are we? What can we possibly be?"

Adelaide considered her for a moment, the Doctor stepping out of his suit so that he could stand even closer to the Time Lady. "You're the only mystery worth solving," she said quietly, and meant it.

Before the war, humans had never been something particularly special to Adelaide. But with the Doctor, after being one, she could permit herself to shift her opinion.

Once, the Doctor had called humans giants, right after they'd first met for real.

Adelaide didn't agree just yet.

 **A/N: Sadly, even Adelaide can't escape a fear of the dark. Good thing the Doctor can make everything better ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Tina. And. Maxwell: Hopefully ;)_


	20. Terrified

**Terrified**

Clara stared at the board of ghost pictures, not really focusing, while the Time Lords worked to develop the new photos. Emma stepped up to her. "What's wrong?"

"I just saw something I wish I hadn't," Clara sighed.

"What did you see?"

"That everything ends."

Emma shook her head. "No, not everything. Not love. Not always."

Clara glanced at the Time Lords right before the Doctor called everyone over, "right, done! That's it. Gather round, gather round. Roll up, roll up." Adelaide had set up a projector, using her sonic as a clicker. It had, honestly, taken her longer than it would have if the Doctor had done it, but he'd let her work without interruption. "The Ghast of Caliburn House. Never changing, trapped in a moment of fear and torment. But, what if she's not? What if she's just trapped somewhere time runs more slowly than it does here?"

"What if a second to her was a hundred thousand years to us?" Adelaide added.

"And what if somebody has a magic box? A blue box, probably." He grinned. "What if somebody could take a snapshot of her, say, every few million years?"

Adelaide flicked through the pictures, showing a running woman in a white suit. "She's not a ghost." She flicked to the last picture of the same woman smiling. "Her name is Hila Tacorian. She's a time traveler from a few hundred years in the future."

Alec shook his head. "Time travel's not possible. The paradoxes…"

"Resolve themselves, by and large."

"How long has she been alone?" Emma asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, time travel's a funny old thing. I mean, from her perspective, she crash landed three minutes ago."

"Crash landed? Where?"

"A pocket universe," Adelaide said. "Occasionally, they occur, but they never last long."

The Doctor blew up two balloons, one blue and one red. "Our universe." He held up the blue one. "Hila Tacorian's here," and the red one, "in a pocket universe. You're a lantern," he started to twist the balloons together, "shining across the dimensions, guiding her home, back to the land of the living."

"But what's she running from?"

"Well, that's the best bit. We don't know yet. Shall we see?" he pointed at Adelaide, who flicked her sonic again to reveal a distorted sort of creature hiding behind a tree. "Oh."

Clara made a face. "What is that?"

The Time Lords glanced at each other. "We don't know. Still, not to worry."

"So, what do we do?"

"Not we, you," the Doctor corrected, looking at Emma. "You save Hila Tacorian because you are Emma Grayling. You are the lantern. The rest of us are just along for the ride, I'm afraid. We need some sturdy rope and a blue crystal from Metebelis Three. Plus, some Kendal Mint Cake. And strawberries."

The final statement made Adelaide smile, and that had been the Doctor's goal.

|C-S|

Clara followed the Doctor back to the TARDIS to get the necessary wires. They'd left Adelaide in the house in order to repair whatever she could from her end. "Can't you just, you know?" Clara asked him, leaning on the railing as she watched the Doctor work.

"What?"

"Fly the TARDIS into the parallel universe?"

"Ah, it's not a parallel universe," the Doctor corrected. "It's a pocket universe. Plus, it is collapsing. I mean, the TARDIS could get in there alright," he patted it as he passed, pulling a group of wires with him, "but entropy would bleed her power sources, you see? Trap her there until the entire universe decayed back into the quantum foam. Which would take about three minutes, give or take, you know."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Maybe I'll just ask Adelaide to explain it."

The Doctor shrugged. "She was more of a biologist than a time-scientist."

"Time-scientist?"

He waved a hand. "Time Lord thing. Adelaide knows about it, of course – she knows about everything – but that sort of thing wasn't her specialty."

Clara nodded, watching as the Doctor looked into the distance, no doubt thinking of Adelaide and the various things she knew.

A slight blush warmed his cheeks when the Doctor glanced back at her, narrowing his eyes. "Shut up."

"I didn't say anything!" She smirked. "Adelaide wouldn't like it that you told me to shut up. It's rude." He stuck his tongue out. "And so's that."

|C-S|

Despite the rather impressive mess the wires had made, Adelaide wasn't that bothered. She and the Doctor, after a few seconds of quick quiet conversation, had worked together without much more discussion. Clara had just tried to stay out of the way. Once she was fairly certain they weren't going to dash back to the middle of the room and collide with her, she stepped up to the large sculpture sort of thing they'd set up. "What is that?"

"A subset of the Eye of Harmony," the Doctor called.

"I don't…"

He waved a hand. "Of course you don't. Be weird if you did. I barely do myself." He looked at Adelaide. "Do you?"

"Biologist."

He pointed at Clara. "See? Told you."

Adelaide sighed, turning to Emma. "Sit down, please." She placed a headset with a blue crystal set into it on Emma's head.

Emma shifted in her seat, glancing up at it. "What does it do?"

"It amplifies your natural abilities like a microphone, or a pooper scooper," the Doctor explained.

Alec glanced at the clock. "What exactly is this arrangement?"

"A psychochronograph."

"Forgive me, but isn't it all a bit well…make-do and mend?"

The Doctor put on the harness; Adelaide's brief previous experience with a similar situation had not involved actually leaping into a pocket universe in order to rescue a trapped time traveler who was running from some mysterious creature, so this time she couldn't argue she was the one best suited to the task. Besides, he was the one who'd modified the harness, so if anyone was going to be in danger because of it malfunctioning was going to be him.

That didn't mean Adelaide was okay with it, but it did mean that Adelaide couldn't logically find a way to make him let her go instead.

"Non-psychic technology won't work where I'm going," the Doctor said. "Listen, all I need to do is dive into another dimension, find the time traveler, help her escape the monster, get home before the entire dimension collapses and Bob's your uncle." He grinned, but it was mainly at Adelaide.

Emma took a deep breath. "Will it hurt?"

"No," the Doctor said at the same time Adelaide said, "yes." He amended his original statement. "Probably. A bit. Well, quite a lot. I don't know. It might be agony. To be perfectly honest, I'll be interested to find out."

Emma glanced at Alec, who nodded, before taking another breath and closing her eyes. "I'm talking to the lost soul that abides in this place. I'm speaking to Hila Tarcorian."

The Doctor grabbed the end of a rope while Adelaide hooked it to the back of the harness. The clocks had started going every which way. When Emma opened her eyes, the disk had appeared again, bringing a strong wind with it, and eventually created a burst of bright light. "See? The Witch of the Well! It's a wormhole! A reality well! A door to the echo universe. Ready?"

Emma nodded. "Ready!"

He smiled at Adelaide again. "Geronimo!" he took a running leap into the wormhole, holding onto the rope as went.

"Doctor!"

|C-S|

The Doctor started running almost immediately once he landed in the echo universe, feeling very glad he hadn't let Adelaide come as his eyes adjusted to the extremely dark lighting. "Hila? Hila! Hila Tacorian!" he stopped when he heard a whoosing sound around him, spinning, but saw nothing. "One…two…three…" and he started running again, hearing a woman shout in the distance.

"Help me! Help!"

He leaped over a log just as Hila ran out of the fog. "Hila Tacorian, I presume." He reached for her hand, but she pulled away.

"Who are you?"

"Collapsing universe. You and me, dead, two minutes. No time complete sentences. Abandon planet!" he tried to pull her, but she stopped.

"Wait. There's something in the mist."

"Then run! Run!" he managed to pull her that time.

"Doctor!" he could hear Emma calling for them. "Doctor! Come home! Doctor, come home!"

He stopped, looking around. "Not that way, which means…probably…"

"What's wrong?"

"You know that exit I mentioned?"

Hila nodded. "Yes?"

"I seem to have misplaced it." Maybe Adelaide should have come after all. She wouldn't have lost their only escape route. She was far too clever for that.

There was the sound in the woods again and a voice called again. "Doctor!"

He pulled Hila in its direction. "This way."

"Doctor! Come home! Doctor, we're here!"

He stopped short as the Caliburn house appeared in the fog. "Whoa."

"What's that?"

"An echo house, in an echo universe. Clever psychic, that is just top-notch!" he ran for the house.

"Doctor!"

They managed to get inside, shoving the doors shut behind them. They could still hear the creature outside. "It's looking for a way in."

|C-S|

In the music room, Emma was struggling to keep it open. Alec was holding Clara back. Adelaide was panicking.

She felt like she was on Midnight again, a Time Lady fighting for the other last of her species, for the man whose timeline touched hers in impossible to ignore points. For a man she might just love.

A man who was in grave danger.

But now she wasn't a Time Lady locked inside a pocket watch fighting a terrified human who didn't have the capacity to understand what was happening to her. Now, she was here.

And she still couldn't save him.

"I'm not strong enough!" Emma cried.

"Just a few more seconds," Adelaide told her and the woman screamed and Adelaide was almost thankful she was the one who'd stayed behind because at least she could ignore her empathy.

Even if, had the Doctor been the one there, he would have been able to do something. Anything.

|C-S|

The Doctor and Hila reached the music room, finding the harness. "Grab the rope. Give it three tugs, quick as you like!"

Hila put on the harness. "What about you?"

"I'll be next," he promised, moving to secure the door. Hila was pulled back in by Alec and the Doctor frowned at the sound of the creature hammering on the door. "Oh, that's what that noise was. Lovely."

|C-S|

Emma collapsed, the harness falling from her head and breaking the connection.

"No!" Clara shouted, the portal vanishing.

Adelaide stood there, staring.

No.

The decision was quick, simple. She didn't care if it was logical or emotional.

She wasn't going to let this happen. She wasn't going to be the only Time Lord Victorious.

She was not going to let the Doctor just leave her.

|C-S|

The Doctor watched as the portal vanished and, a few seconds later, the house did too. "Oh dear…" he breathed, looking around. He heard the creature somewhere around him. "Where are you?" the creature made another sound and the Doctor took off running towards it.

|C-S|

Clara shook Emma. "Wake up! Wake up! Open the thing!"

Emma sighed. "I'm sorry."

Alec stroked her hair. "Don't be sorry. Don't be. What you did…"

"Wasn't enough. She needs to do it again."

"She can't! Look at her."

"She has to! We can't leave him." Clara glanced back at the Time Lady, who didn't actually look that upset – granted, Adelaide never really looked that upset, especially around strangers, so it wasn't a good way of marking a situation. "Can we?"

Adelaide shook her head. "Follow me." She ran from the room, Clara a few steps behind, and down to where they'd left the TARDIS.

"But the Doctor said going in would drain the power?" Clara asked.

"If we're quick enough, it will be fine," Adelaide told her, searching her pocket for the TARDIS key, so thankful that she had one now, though now wishing she kept it on her bracelet for easy access.

Clara, impatient, grabbed one of the handles and pulled. "Oh, come on! Let me in, you grumpy old cow!"

Adelaide pulled out the key. "First, these doors open inwards, not outward as they should, so that pulling like that won't do any good. Second, do not call anyone a 'grumpy old cow', especially a multidimensional time-machine." The statements were almost snapped.

Clara frowned at her. She knew how Adelaide felt about the Time Lord - maybe better than Adelaide knew herself - and she knew that the woman should have been panicking. Even with Adelaide's normal suppression of emotions, there should have been something...this was the man she loved, she should be worried, especially now that the outsiders were gone. But Adelaide was here just opening the door like it was just another day. "Aren't you scared?" she knew Adelaide could look scared, she'd seen her.

"Terrified." Adelaide paused with the door slightly open, looking down. "I'm not terrified often."

She'd been terrified on Midnight. When the Doctor had been regenerating. When the ship above Craig's flat had tried to make the Doctor its captain. With the Gangers, when she'd walked in and saw the Doctor unconscious.

When the Doctor was in danger, she was terrified. She couldn't help it. It was instinctual, overriding any logical barriers Adelaide tried to uphold.

Once upon a time, at the very beginning of this regeneration, before everything had truly settled, she would have written her terror off.

He was the other last of her species, of course she was worried. It was natural. Self-preservation. Nothing to do with the additional feelings she was attempting to suppress.

She'd been this regeneration for a while. Now she truly grasped how this version of her thought.

She'd tried to be logical. She'd tried to be the Time Lady from before the war. Sometimes, she was. Most times, she was.

But even if she'd never set a foot on the battlefield, the war had changed her. She could never be the Time Lady she'd once been. She could be close, so close that, mostly, the difference was imperceivable. But it was close, not exact.

She may have never been a soldier, but she was the Time Lady Victorious, and that was okay.

It was okay.

It was okay that she was terrified every time the Doctor was in danger because she knew he was terrified every time she was. And it wasn't just because they were the last Time Lords.

Clara touched Adelaide's free hand. "It's okay to be terrified." The human said quietly. "Even Time Ladies are scared sometimes."

Adelaide said nothing, only nodded, and strode up to the console to pilot to the Doctor in order to save him. She didn't care that she could only land in the pocket universe for a few seconds, that this was foolish and risking all of their lives. She was going to save the Doctor. The universe didn't make bargains, but sometimes it could be kind.

Besides, she and the Doctor had fixed events scattered throughout their timelines and the universe had made it very clear that they couldn't escape each other.

Then, in the heat of the moment, Adelaide made a decision.

She and the Doctor were going to have a talk.

They didn't do that often.

But they were going to do it now. They'd waited long enough.

|C-S|

The Doctor ran through the forest, not really knowing where he was going. He had confidence in Adelaide and he was clinging to that. She would save him. She would figure out a way to get to him and she would save him.

Unless her logic made her realize exactly how dangerous it would be to either have Emma open the portal again or pilot the TARDIS to him.

"Doctor!" Emma called, somewhere in the air around him. "Can you hear me? Doctor! Doctor, can you hear me? Doctor!" In the distance, the house appeared again. "Doctor, we're here. Come home!"

"Emma?" But he heard a snarl and he stopped, spinning. "What do you want? To frighten me, I suppose, eh? Because that's what you. You hide. You're the bogeyman under the bed, seeking whom you may devour." He laughed. "You want me to be afraid. Then well done. I am the Doctor and I am afraid."

"Doctor, hurry!" Emma called.

He spun again, following the sounds of the creature. "So why am I still here, huh? Why not just eat me? Huh? Come on. Because you still need me. Yeah, you need me to piggyback you across. To which I say, come on then, big boy, chase me."

He started running again, just making it to the edge of the house before the creature tackled him. Then he heard someone screaming, or cheering, and just managed to avoid getting hit as the TARDIS slammed into the creature. When it circled back around, he grabbed it.

|C-S|

The moment Adelaide landed the TARDIS - in the house that time - she rushed out the door. The Doctor was clinging to the side, looking relieved, confused, and slightly ill - even Time Lords weren't meant for cross-universal travel holding onto the outside of a TARDIS. Adelaide didn't really care. She just grabbed him and pulled him from the room to somewhere private.

It was time for their talk.

This one didn't involve a shouting match in Gallifreyan. It didn't involve insults and logic and passion being thrown in each other's faces, everything meant to hurt. It was just a quiet, rushed admission that, even in this minimal form, reminded Adelaide exactly why she didn't like talking about things. But when she finished, standing opposite the Doctor, he just stepped forward, took her hands, and grinned.

The universe didn't brighten, but they didn't care.

It mattered to them.

|C-S|

It was morning by the time Clara, Alec, and Hila were walking outside and the Time Lords were standing at a window watching them. Emma stepped up quietly, not wanting to interrupt where she wasn't welcome. "You wanted a word?"

The Doctor turned to her. "Well, if that's…"

"That's fine. You didn't come here for the ghost, did you?"

He shook his head. "No."

"You came here for me."

Adelaide turned as well. "Yes."

"Why?"

"We needed to ask you something."

Emma nodded. "Then ask."

"Clara."

"Yes?"

"What is she?"

"She's a girl."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, but what kind of girl, specifically?"

"She's a perfectly ordinary girl. Very pretty, very clever, more scared than she lets on."

The Doctor glanced back at Clara. "And that's it, is it?"

"Why?" Emma frowned. "Is that not enough?"

|C-S|

The Doctor and Adelaide stood together as Emma said goodbye to Hila, Clara a few steps away. Nothing had _happened_ between them, but something had happened.

There was a very important difference.

"Where will you go?" Emma asked, pulling away from their hug.

Hila shrugged. "They can't take me home. History says I went missing."

"But they can change history."

The Doctor leaned forward. "No, no, no, we can't, actually. There are fixed points in time, you see…"

Adelaide, without a word, grabbed the Doctor's shoulder and pulled him back.

"I knew you were there," Hila told Emma. "I could feel you."

"I know."

Hila frowned. "Have we?"

"We can't have. You haven't even been born yet."

"No," the Doctor leant forward again, "you can't have met but she can be your great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter." The Doctor grinned at Alec as he stepped up. "Yours too, of course. But you guessed that already, didn't you?" by their faces, and the suppressed smile on Adelaide's, they had not. "Oh. Apparently not."

"The paradoxes…"

"Resolve themselves, by and large." The Doctor nodded. "That's why the psychic link was so powerful. Blood calling to blood, out of time. Not everything ends. Not love." Without thinking, his gaze flickered to Adelaide. "Not always."

Alec stepped forward, following them towards the TARDIS. "Doctor, Adelaide, what about…what about us? Emma and me?"

He frowned. "What about you?"

"Well, what's supposed to happen? I mean, what do we do now?"

Adelaide shrugged. "Hold hands. Hold hands and don't let go…" her voice trailed off, meeting the Doctor's gaze slowly, realization dawning simultaneously.

His mouth fell open. "I'm so…slow! I am slow. I'm notorious for it. That's always been my problem. But…but I, but we, get there in the end." He grinned. "Oh yes."

Clara eyed them. "Doctor? Adelaide?"

"How do sharks make babies?"

"Carefully?"

"No, no, no. Happily!"

"Sharks don't actually smile. They're just, well, they've got lots and lots of teeth. They're quite eaty."

The Doctor nodded. "Exactly. But birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. Every lonely monster needs a companion." He darted forward, Adelaide and Clara following moments later, to see one of the creatures in an upper window.

"There's two of them?" Clara gasped.

"It's the oldest story in the universe, this one or any other. Boy and girl fall in love, get separated by events. War, politics, accidents in time. She's thrown out of the hex, or he's thrown into it. Since then they've been yearning for each other across time and space, across dimensions. This isn't a ghost story, it's a love story!" at some point in that, he'd taken Adelaide's hand, but she most certainly didn't mind.

They both turned to Emma. "Excuse us," Adelaide said. "Sorry to interrupt. But we have a small favor."

|C-S|

That time, the Doctor still dropped into the pocket universe alone, but he knew for a fact that Adelaide was coming. "I'm sorry!" he shouted. "I understand now! I can take you to her! I can take you to a safe place far away from here! You can be together! Well, come on, then. She's waiting!" He turned, feeling something breathing on him, to find the creature directly behind him. "Why, hello again, you old Romeo, you." He grinned, pointing up. "Now, here she comes."

Adelaide brought the TARDIS right to them.

"Get ready to jump!"

 **A/N: Finally! A big positive step for the Time Lords! Surely this means only good things ahead ;)**


	21. The Bulb

**The Bulb**

The Time Lords exchanged a look as the Doctor attempted to process what Clara had just said. "You said…" he frowned.

Clara nodded, huffing slightly. "I know what I said. I was the one who said it."

"You said it was looking at you funny."

"I was tired, overwrought. I didn't mean it. It's an appliance. It does a job."

The Doctor frowned. "It's a pretty cool appliance." He patted the console. "We're not talking cheese grater here."

Clara crossed her arms. "You're not getting me to talk to your ship. That's properly bonkers."

He leaned closer to whisper to the machine. "It's okay. It's okay."

Clara sighed, shaking her head and glancing at Adelaide. "He's like one of those guys who can't go out with a girl unless his mother approves." She was quite pleased she got a smile out of the Time Lady.

"It's important to me, to us," he gestured between himself and Adelaide, "you get along. We could leave you two alone together."

She raised her eyebrows. "Now you're creeping me out."

"Take the wheel…"

"Not the wheel," Adelaide corrected.

The Doctor nodded. "I'll make it easy. Shut it down to basic mode for you." He moved to change the TARDIS mode.

"Basic? Because I'm a girl?"

"I'm a girl," Adelaide pointed out.

"You're a Time Lady."

"And you're a human." She leaned forward to switch a few things close to her for the Doctor. "Basic mode."

|C-S|

Everything seemed to be going okay, with the Time Lords teaching her the basic points of steering it. Adelaide had never actually taught anyone how to pilot a TARDIS, but the Doctor had, so he was mainly taking the lead.

However, they all stopped when, after Clara flicked a switch, all the lights went out, turning red a second later. "What have I done?"

The Doctor looked around. "Er…okay."

"Doctor?"

The Time Lords started to work. "All the electrical impulses are jammed. I can't get the shields back up. She's completely vulnerable."

Clara shook her head. "I swear I just touched it."

"You couldn't have done this, Clara," Adelaide said.

The Doctor managed to get the lever he'd been attempting to pull down with quite a lot of sparks. He ran around the console, going to a monitor. "Magnetic hobble-field. We're flying right into it."

Adelaide pulled Clara back. "Clara, stay by me."

"Please tell me there's a button you can press to fix this."

"Oh, yes." The Doctor nodded. "Big friendly button."

"You're lying."

"Yep."

"To stop me freaking out?"

"Is it working?"

"Not so much!"

Something rolled across the ground, towards Clara, as a jolt of the TARDIS sent Adelaide falling in the opposite direction. Clara reached for it but instantly dropped it when it burned her hand.

There was another explosion and they were all thrown apart.

|C-S|

When the Time Lords blinked awake, they were a bit surprised to find themselves lying in a pile of rubbish. They looked for each other first, without thinking about it, before they both realized that Clara was nowhere to be seen. Since the TARDIS was still behind them, they could only guess that Clara was either trapped inside or somewhere else on this ship.

"…asks, that ship was already busted," a nearby man was saying to another two, speaking in hushed tones. "You got that? And you, make sure you keep your oily mouth shut, right?"

"It's rude to whisper," the Doctor called, making the men spin. "She doesn't like it when you're rude and trust me, you want her to like you." He grinned. "Hi, I'm the Doctor, she's Adelaide. And you are?" he squinted at their nametags, shaking their hands. "Van Baalen and Van Baalen. Van Baalen and Van Baalen." The third man didn't have a nametag, but he shook his hand anyway, looking back at Adelaide as he spoke. "That's going to get confusing later."

"We found you drifting," the first man said.

The second Van Baalen nodded. "Yeah, your ship was junked up pretty bad."

The Doctor turned to look at the TARDIS before stepping up to Adelaide again, slinging an arm around her shoulder. "What broke our ship was a magno-grab. Found this remote in your pocket." He held up the thing he'd stolen when he'd shook the first man's hand. "What are the chances?"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Outlawed in most galaxies, that device could disable whole vessels…unless you have shield oscillators."

"Which we turned off so that Clara could fly. Clara, where is she? Girl, about so high. Feisty."

"She's still on board," Adelaide told the Doctor, already having reasoned it.

The Doctor ran for the box, but the third man grabbed him. "No, wait. Your pod is leaking fuel. If she's still in here, she's dead."

Adelaide studied their surroundings. "Respirators," she said, pointing at the small pile by the lockers. The Doctor darted over to them.

"We can open the doors for a split second, reach in, and grab her."

"Trust me, we can't." He soniced the respirators to ensure they functioned properly. "Now please, help us get her out."

The third man shook his head. "I'm telling you, she's fried…"

"Shut it, tin mouth!" the first man cut in. "What sort of fee are we talking?"

The Doctor glanced at Adelaide. "If you help us get her out, you get the machine, all the scrap, eh?"

The first man crossed his arms. "It's not worth the risk. Four feet of metal? Nah."

"And if we can guarantee the best haul you've ever had?" Adelaide had, a few times before, bargained her TARDIS for help. She'd never had to give it up, but sometimes it was necessary when you were attempting to navigate the universe without relying on the power of the Time Lords.

Once, only the Corsair appearing had saved her from whatever circumstance she'd gotten herself into.

The first man eyed them. "Bram, open the bay doors."

"No, no!" the Doctor stepped forward. "Please, stop. Listen, listen. Right behind those doors is the salvage of a lifetime."

When the first man honestly looked tempted, the second stepped towards him. "Hey, are we really going to risk it? That thing is spewing poison. We should blow it back into space."

"Get your gear."

"Hey, I don't take orders from my kid brother."

The first raised his eyebrows. "Don't try and form sentences, all right? Stick to what you do best."

The men started to suit up, with the Time Lords moving closer together again, but they both eyed the third man. It was clear enough by the others' treatment that the third was some sort of android, which would have normally meant he wouldn't need a respirator. "Tell me," the Doctor called, "since when does an android need a blast suit and a respirator?"

"Flesh coating, same as us," Bram answered for him. "He'd burn up."

The android shrugged. "No fear, no hate, no pain."

Once everyone was suited up, the Time Lords stepped up to the TARDIS in order to unlock it. "Salvage of a lifetime?" the first asked them, joining them.

"I feel pretty confident we can deliver on that." The Doctor grinned. "Here we go!" he kicked the doors open, everyone leaning out of the way as smoke billowed out. The men pulled on their goggles, but it was the Time Lords who led them inside.

The gravity automatically righted them despite the fact the box was currently on its side. Gregor, the first man, shook his head as he looked around. "I don't get it. I thought she was lying on her side."

The Doctor waved a hand. "The TARDIS is special. She has her own gravity."

Adelaide nodded. "We'd explain if we had the time." They hurried to the console.

"It's…it's…it's bigger."

"On the inside." He glanced at Adelaide. "Do you know, I get that a lot."

Tricky, the android, nodded. "Whoa…awesome."

The Doctor pointed at him. "Well put. Whoa and awesome." Adelaide pressed a switch, venting the smoke from the room. "Safe to breathe." They all pulled off their respirators, the Doctor spinning in a small circle with his sonic. "Okay, now, the last thing I remember…you were right there," he pointed where Adelaide had been, "and she was right there," and where Clara had. "Come on, Clara, talk to us."

"How big is this baby?" Bram asked.

"Picture the biggest ship you've ever seen," the Doctor told him, Adelaide taking over the sonic scanning. "Are you picturing it?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Now forget it, because this ship is infinite."

Gregor raised his eyebrows. "It could take you hours to find the girl."

"Days. Plus this whole place is toxic. She could be dead by the time we reach her." He rubbed his hands together. "So, here's the mission. We're going to find her in one hour."

Gregor gave him a look. "We?"

He nodded. "You're our guys for this."

"That wasn't the deal."

"'tis now."

Bram frowned. "What makes you think we'll help?"

Adelaide flicked something else on the console, bringing up a countdown. "I just activated the TARDIS self-destruct system. We have one hour until the ship explodes." Bram ran for the doors, but the Doctor used his sonic to close the doors. "Don't attempt to leave. The TARDIS is in lockdown."

"We'll open those doors when Clara's by our side."

"You crazy lunatics!"

"Our ship, our rules."

Gregor frowned. "You'll kill us all. And the girl."

"She's going to die if you don't help us." The Doctor shrugged. "Don't get into a spaceship with a madman and his polite friend; didn't anyone ever teach you that?"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. She'd bargained with threatening to explode the TARDIS before, but never for a human's life. It was an odd experience. She blamed the Doctor. "Gentle persuasion? Thirty minutes?" the countdown switched.

Bram gasped. "She'll die even quicker now!"

The Time Lord shrugged. "We all perform better under pressure. Anybody want to go for fifteen minutes?"

"Whoa!"

"Whoa!"

"It's your own time you're wasting." The Doctor nodded. "Salvage of a lifetime. You meant the ship. We meant Clara." He stepped back, grabbing Adelaide's hand, and left the console room. The three men joined them a second later, though Gregor lagged for a few seconds.

"Guys, guys, look, I think we should split up," he told them, holding out a scanner. "It's our best chance of finding the girl. You know it is."

The Doctor pointed at him, checking his watch. "Don't touch a thing. Adela-the TARDIS will get huffy if you mess." He grinned at Adelaide, the Time Lady shaking her head. "What? You will!"

Gregor glanced at Tricky as he moved to follow the Time Lords. "Keep in radio contact, alright?" Tricky nodded, following them, while he turned to Bram. "Get back to the console. Strip it apart."

Bram grinned and hurried off.

|C-S|

Gregor was careful when he entered the room his scanner had brought him to. It had a large metal tree-like thing in it, with glowing bulbs dangling from the ends. He scanned it. "Everything," the computer told him.

"I don't understand. Give me a price tag."

"Incalculable."

His eyes widened. "What?"

"More valuable than the total sum of any currency. Living metal. Bespoke engineering. Whatever machine you require, this system will build it."

Gregor put the scanner away, walking up to one of the bulbs. When he touched it, it went dark, which was a good thing in his mind. He pulled out a laser cutter to cut it free but was interrupted by the Time Lords running in.

"No!" the Doctor shouted. "No, no, stop! Please, don't. Don't touch it! Please. She won't let you touch it." He looked around them. "I can feel a TARDIS tantrum coming on."

"What the hell is this place?"

"Architectural Reconfiguration System," Adelaide told him. "It reconstructs particles according to your needs."

He raised his eyebrows. "A machine that makes machines?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, basically." Gregor held up the laser cutter again. "What are you doing? No, no, don't! Don't! If you walk out of here with that circuit, the TARDIS will try to stop you." Gregor didn't stop. "Look, the clock is ticking. We must find Clara."

Gregor just pulled the bulb from the tree instead of cutting the branch, making all of the others flicker off for a second. There was a high-pitched noise and Gregor turned to the door…or where there had been a door, only they'd vanished. "What the…where's the door gone?"

"Ever seen a spaceship get angry?" Adelaide asked.

Gregor shook his head. "This isn't happening."

"She won't relinquish it," Adelaide said. "That's her basic genetic material."

Gregor threw a device at Tricky. "Torch it." The android hesitated. "I said torch it!"

"Can't you feel it, Gregor? The ship…the ship's in torment, like it's a living thing. You can't hurt it."

He just shoved the bulb into his bag, taking the device back from Tricky and moving to the wall again. But the doors reappeared, making him quite pleased with himself. "What's the matter, TARDIS? Scared to fight me?" he strode out of the room, leaving the Time Lords to look at each other before they followed.

|C-S|

The Time Lords led the group through the TARDIS, glancing back at Gregor every few seconds to ensure he hadn't wandered off again. They stepped through a corridor, entering an intersection…that they recognized.

"It's the same," Tricky muttered. "It's just the same."

"It's diverting us, spinning a maze around us," the Doctor reasoned. "We will never reach Clara in time." Gregor just pushed past them, moving through the right corridor. "Hey! Hey!" But they just walked back into the intersection from the other side.

Tricky shook his head. "It's just the same, again."

"No point in building walls," the Doctor shrugged. "You'll just know how to smash them down. It's found other ways of controlling you." He slung an arm around Adelaide's shoulders. "Smart bunch, Time Lords. No dress sense, dreadful hats, but smart."

Adelaide nodded. "If you want to get out of here you have to let go of that circuit. The TARDIS is creating a labyrinth."

"Bram?" Gregor called into the comm. "Bram, can you hear me? Bram, the ship is alive. Get out of there. Bram, don't touch anything. Bram? You've got to get out of there fast." He froze when they heard Bram scream. Then they heard static. "Channel's dead."

Tricky's eyes widened. "We've got to help him. Gregor, do something. Do something!"

Gregor shook his head. "It's too late, he's gone. Let's just worry about the salvage."

"You care more about that circuit than you do about him!"

The Doctor frowned. "Your concern for your brother is really touching. The android is more cut up about it than you."

"Now, will you two stop bickering and listen," Adelaide said. "Notice everything. There's something else down here."

The men quieted, gasping when they heard a growling sound somewhere around them. "We've got to get out of here! Gregor, give it back. Give it back to her!" Tricky took the bulb from Gregor's bag.

"What are you doing?" He pushed Tricky against the wall. "You're always on the side of the machines."

"Fellas!" the Doctor called. "Multiple lifeforms on board the TARDIS with us." He held up his sonic. "I am getting a massive signal."

Tricky glanced at him. "Where are they?"

"Oh, you're not going to like the answer." The Doctor pulled Adelaide a bit in one direction. "About two steps away. One step…" A strange charred looking conjoined creature emerged from the darkness, swiping at them. "Gregor, look out! Careful! Gregor, no!" the man ran down one of the halls. "We have to stay together!"

Adelaide glanced at Tricky, grabbing his arm. "Tricky, you need to run." She forced him to follow them.

 **A/N: More teamwork from the Time Lords...and another hint at Adelaide's slightly unsavory history ;)**


	22. The Button

**The Button**

They hurried through the TARDIS, stopping short when they ran into the console room. Tricky sighed. "Back where we started."

"No," the Doctor said, walking up to the console, "it's an echo. The console room is the safest place on the ship. It can replicate itself any number of times. It's trying to protect us."

"Because I tried to give back the circuit?"

The Doctor gestured between the trio. "Team TARDIS."

Adelaide, stepping up to him, adjusting a bit of debris in order to get to something. She just managed to see a piece as it fell and vanished.

"Where did…" Tricky gasped. "Where did that go?"

"There's more than one echo room," Adelaide reasoned, looking around and just managing to spot a shadow that none of them had created. "That was Clara; the TARDIS has protected her."

The Doctor blew kisses to the rotor. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Tricky frowned. "Why can't we see her?"

"It's like a light switch. Two positions, flickering at super-infinite speeds. We're only together for a brief second." He held up a hand. "Shush." Vaguely, quite quietly, they could hear Clara. "We can hear her…"

They heard a growl and a scream. "She's let it in!" Tricky realized. "She's let it in!"

The Time Lords turned to the console, rushing to work. "If we can just isolate her position, we can nudge the alternation, reach in, and grab her."

"Console room, echo imprint of the original," a computer said from the doorway, Gregor having walked up with his scanner out.

"You're coming with me." Gregor pointed at the Time Lords. "I need you to get me out of here."

The Doctor darted over, snatching and sonicing the scanner. "Scanning for female human." He started to move around the console room. "Scanning for female human. Unidentified human."

He chuckled. "It doesn't know Lancashire."

Gregor frowned. "What?"

"It doesn't know sass. Yes!" he spun in a small circle. "It's found Clara. It's found her. She is right…there!" he pointed with his sonic, flashing it to make Clara partially appear in front of the doors. The Doctor grabbed her, pulling her into their version of the console room. Clara was still screaming as the Doctor grabbed her shoulders. "It's alright." He hugged her tight. "Clara, we're so, so sorry. Please, please forgive us, Clara." Clara pulled back just enough to punch him in the shoulder. "Ow! Okay, so we're not doing hugging. I get that now."

Clara crossed her arms, looking between the Time Lords. "What do you keep in here? Why have you got zombie creatures? Good guys do not have zombie creatures. Rule one" she hit the Doctor in the shoulder "basic storytelling."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "Not in front of guests."

Clara glanced at the two men, giving them a small nod. "Who are they?"

"Acquaintances." She shrugged. "Well, people who are currently not attempting to kill us."

"Alright, alright," Gregor said, stepping forward. "Look, a deal's a deal. You got the girl back. Now cancel the self-destruct."

"Ah," the Doctor laughed, putting a hand on Gregor's shoulder. "You know, I've got to tell you, we won't be needing you in our quiz team."

"What?"

"There is no self-destruct," Adelaide said.

The Doctor punched Gregor's shoulder. "Hey? Hey? Hey? She had you going through, boys, didn't she?"

"I just wiggled a few buttons." Adelaide leaned against the console. "Very effective trick."

"And the face." The Doctor pointed at her. "It was a wonderful face."

"'Save her or we all die'." Adelaide shrugged. "Did rush it though."

"Still perfect."

Tricky frowned. "So you're telling us we're safe?"

"Apart from the creatures and the TARDIS reinventing the architecture every five minutes…

"Guys, don't worry. The countdown's a fake. Look, just give me a second." The Doctor darted up to the console. "I'll turn it off. She only made it look as though the engine was actually exploding."

And then an alarm went off. Adelaide hurried to pull the monitor towards them. Engine overload. "Ah…"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "That's not good. Okay, don't panic. Or maybe panic."

Clara stepped closer. "Something you want to share with the rest of us?"

"The engine is damaged," Adelaide said.

"We're in trouble, Clara. Proper trouble. It needs fixing or we're toast."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "So now would be a good time to use that big friendly button, right?"

"Yes," the Doctor winced. "Sorry, I should have one built in." He hurried over to a panel in the wall, sonicing it.

"Where are we going?" Tricky asked, the rest of the group joining him.

"Detour." He pulled the panel open. "The center of the TARDIS."

|C-S|

The Doctor kept his sonic out as they hurried through the corridors. Adelaide had decided to walk with Clara while Tricky and Gregor walked behind them. A shadow dashed across the corridor before them. Clara stopped, gasping, and grabbed Adelaide's arm. "Shush…something's in here."

Tricky nodded, tensing. "Those things…they've followed us."

"What are they?" Clara asked the Time Lords. "What aren't you tell me?"

"Trust me," the Doctor said, glancing back. "Some things you don't want to know."

Something moved behind them, which Gregor spotted. "They're on the move again."

"Run," Adelaide ordered. "Move, move." The whole group darted around a corner, Adelaide and Clara somehow getting separated from the rest of them.

They stumbled, frowning. "Doctor?" Clara called, keeping a tight grip on Adelaide's arm. "What happened?"

"Keep quiet," Adelaide mumbled, looking around them.

"I know what I said," Clara said from behind them, and both of them spun to see the trio of them walking past the corridor. "I was the one who said it."

"You said it was looking at you funny," the other Doctor said.

Clara moved to go after their other selves, but Adelaide grabbed her shoulder.

Another Clara spoke behind them. "Now you're creeping me out. Please tell me there is a button you can press to fix this?"

Adelaide pulled Clara around a corner, finding the Doctor standing with his back to them. "Don't touch him," Adelaide told her.

"There's a rupture in time somewhere on board the ship," the Doctor said from behind them, the real Doctor appearing behind them. "A small tear in the fabric of the continuum. It must have happened when the TARDIS was pulled in by the salvage vessel. The TARDIS is leaking."

Clara shook her head. "Leaking what?"

The Doctor hurried back down the corridor. "The past," he called back. "You and us. Everything we've done, everything we've said. Recent history. It's not real. It's a memory."

He stopped when another of the creatures appeared in front of them, smaller than the others.

"What about this?" Clara whispered, moving to stand between the Time Lords as she and Adelaide stepped up.

"This one's real," Adelaide breathed.

The trio turned and ran, but the creature chased them. "She's right onto us!" the Doctor shouted.

"She?"

"Don't ask any more questions!" Adelaide said. "Never thought I'd say that." They ducked into a small hiding spot, the creature still trying to find them.

"He's like one of those guys who can't go out with a girl unless his mother approves," another Clara said, walking past.

"It's important to me, to us, you get along," the other Doctor said. The creature hurried past them, following the other versions of themselves.

There was a banging sound somewhere above them. "What's that noise?" Clara asked, looking up.

"We're right under the primary fuel cells," the Doctor told her.

"So? So, so what?"

"The fuel's spilled and the rods are exposed," Adelaide said quietly. "They'll cool and…"

"And start to warp," Clara realized.

Adelaide nodded. "And start to warp. Perhaps…"

"No, you don't say it. Don't you dare say it."

"Maybe even break apart," the Doctor finished for Adelaide.

A large rod shot out of the wall in front of them, forcing them back.

"Run?" Clara asked.

The Doctor nodded. "I'm liking how you're thinking."

"Yeah."

They started running again, attempting to navigate around the rods bursting through the walls and ceiling. But then they heard a shout, Tricky, who must've gotten injured by a rod. They saw the two men before them, Gregor attempting to pull the rod from Tricky's shoulder.

"Cut it off!" Tricky insisted. "Just cut my arm off!"

"No!" Gregor said, straining.

"It's the quickest way to release me. No fear, no hate, no pain. I can get a new one. Disposable parts. Just do it. It won't hurt me."

Gregor shook his head. "Tricky, you just don't understand."

"I'm an android. Cut me!"

Clara rushed up once they reached the men. "You made it through!"

Tricky frowned at Gregor. "What's the matter with you? Why won't you cut me?"

The Doctor stepped forward. "Tell him."

"Tell me what?"

"You can't, can you?" he snapped. "You're a coward. You won't save him, but you're scared to tell him why."

Tricky looked to Gregor. "What's he going on about?"

"Robots don't need blast suits," Adelaide said, speaking quietly. "They don't need respirators. They don't get frightened of monsters in the dark."

"What's she talking about?"

"Two bionic eyes and a synthetic voice box," the Doctor said. "But you, my friend, are human. Flesh and blood."

"It was a joke," Gregor mumbled.

"What?"

"It was just a stupid joke. We did it to relieve the boredom."

The Doctor nodded, making a face. "Well, it was very funny. They lied to you. Changed your identity just to provide some in-flight entertainment."

"I'm sorry," Gregor said. "You're human, Tricky."

Adelaide gestured towards Gregor's laser cutter. "Cut the metal. Now!"

|C-S|

Clara supported Tricky as they hurried through the corridors, the Time Lords leading the way with the Doctor keeping a tight grip on Adelaide's hand. He did not want her to be apart from him again in this mess of a leaking TARDIS.

"Where are we?" Clara asked as they reached a small door with a window in it.

"Power source," the Doctor said quickly. "Right, you lot, wait here. We'll check it's safe. We can only survive for a minute or two in there."

Clara eyed them. "What happens if we stay longer?"

"Our cells will liquefy and our skin will start to burn," Adelaide told her.

"I always feel so good after we've spoken."

"Marvelous," the Doctor grinned. He'd been sonicing the door as they spoke, opening it. "Keep this door shut."

Clara shook her head. "That will not be a problem."

|C-S|

The Time Lords darted out of the room just as Tricky leaped at Gregor, with Clara just managing to get out of the way. "Stop!" the Doctor ordered. "Tricky, listen to me. Ask yourself why he couldn't cut you up. He has just one tiny scrap of decency left in him, and you helped him find that, okay? Now you." He pointed at Gregor. "Don't ever forget this."

Adelaide smiled at the Doctor for a moment before stepping back. "Okay, let's go." She opened the door, the Doctor helping usher everyone inside. "The Eye of Harmony, she called as the humans looked around, especially at the large star above them. "Exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole."

The Doctor nodded. "Time Lord engineering. You rip the star from its orbit, suspend it in a permanent state of decay. This way, quickly." He hurried past the people towards the other door. But when he opened the door, there was a creature with their hand fused to their head. Adelaide turned as the Doctor soniced the door closed to find the smaller creature behind the other door.

"There's no way out!" Gregor, who'd been closer to Adelaide, gasped. "We're trapped!"

Clara grabbed the Doctor's arm. "You're going to tell me right now. If we're going to die here, you're going to tell me what they are."

"We can't."

"Tell me. What's the use in secrets now?"

The Doctor glanced at Adelaide. "Secrets protect us. Secrets make us safe."

"We're not safe!"

"Sensor detects animal DNA," Gregor's scanner said, aiming it at the creature over Adelaide's shoulder. "Human core element. Calculating data. Calculating data." Adelaide reached for it, but Gregor stepped back, holding it out of her reach as the scanner finished. "Lancashire. Sass. Identifiable substance. Clara."

Clara gasped taking a few steps towards the door. "That's me."

"I'm so sorry," Adelaide breathed.

Clara stared at her charred self, Adelaide's arm keeping her from moving too far. "It's me. I burn in here."

"It isn't just the past leaking out through the time rift," the Doctor said. "It's the future. Listen, we brought you here to keep you safe, but it happened again. You died again."

Clara frowned. "What do you mean, again?"

The Doctor ran a hand over his face, looking at Adelaide, and then they both paused.

A small creature that was Clara.

A creature with a hand fused to his face.

Two figures fused together, as Gregor and Tricky were now, attempting to keep the door shut together.

"Hang on," the Doctor said. "As long as we can interrupt the timeline, this can't happen. Don't touch each other, otherwise the future will reassert itself." He hurried forward, grabbing Gregor and Tricky and pulling them back and behind himself as the creature broke through. One managed to grab Gregor's bag, pulling him back. "Gregor, Gregor, let go of the circuit!"

Tricky nodded. "Just let it go!"

"Gregor!" Adelaide shouted.

Gregor shouldered his bag off, moving back, and Tricky hit the creature over the edge of the catwalk. The group hurried for the door, but the fused pair of creatures appeared. The small creature appeared at the other door, trapping them in the middle of the catwalk.

"Okay…" the Doctor said, looking around. "Er…er…"

Tricky grabbed a crowbar and hit the fused creature over the side, but it grabbed him as it fell, forcing him to grab onto the ledge to prevent himself from falling. Gregor ran for his brother. "Tricky!"

The trio hurried towards the door, Adelaide glancing back. "Don't touch each other, or time will reassert itself."

But it was too late because Gregor had already helped Tricky up, fusing together into the creature. They lunged for the trio, but the time travelers just managed to get through the door and shut it, Adelaide pulling the Doctor through. The Doctor grabbed Adelaide's hand the moment they were stable, all three hurrying down the corridor again, until they reached a door.

"The engine room," the Doctor said. "The heart of the TARDIS." He opened the door but it was only Adelaide grabbing their arms that kept them from falling over the edge of the large cliff inside.

Clara gasped. "We're outside."

"No, we're still in the TARDIS," Adelaide told her.

"There's no way across."

The Doctor, still letting Adelaide hold his shoulder, looked over the edge. "No, okay, you're right."

"So what do we do? Time for a plan." Clara looked between them. "Do you have a plan?"

"Well," the Doctor looked at Adelaide, "no. No plan. Sorry."

"If you two don't have a plan, we're dead."

"Yes, we are." The Doctor stepped closer to Adelaide. "So just tell us."

"Doctor…" Adelaide said, but Clara shook her head.

"Tell you what?"

"Well, there's no point now. We're about to die. Just tell us who you are."

Clara frowned. "You know who I am."

"No, we don't. We look at you every single day and we don't understand a thing about you. Why do we keep running into you?"

"Doctor, you invited me." Clara looked at Adelaide, expecting the woman to say something, but the Time Lady was silent. "You said…"

"Before that," Adelaide said, "we met you in the Dalek Asylum. A woman had been in a shipwreck and she died to protect us. And she appeared to be you."

She shook her head. "She really wasn't."

"In Victorian London, there was a governess who was really a barmaid and she helped us fight the Great Intelligence together. It was my fault she died, and she appeared to be you."

Clara backed up slightly. Though the Doctor hadn't added anything, he was staring at her. "You're scaring me. Both of you."

"What are you?" The Doctor stepped closer. "Are you a trick, a trap?"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" She stepped back again, nearly falling off the edge, but Adelaide grabbed her before she did.

"You don't, do you?" she asked quietly.

"I think I'm more scared of the two of you right now than anything else on that TARDIS."

The Doctor stepped up, giving Clara a hug. "You're just Clara, aren't you?"

"Okay, I don't know what the hell this is about, but the hug is really nice," Clara laughed.

When the Doctor pulled back, he'd very clearly had an idea. "We're not going to die here. This isn't real. It's a snarl."

"What?"

"What does a wounded animal do? It tries to scare everyone away." The Doctor grinned. "We're close to the engine. The TARDIS is snarling at us, trying to frighten us off. We need to jump."

Clara's eyes widened. "You're insane."

"We'll cross a portal to the engine."

"How can you be so sure?"

The Time Lords looked at each other. "We can't."

"Okay, well, that's watertight."

He pointed at her. "Hey now, Clara, I have piloted this ship for over nine hundred years. Trust me this one time and, if you don't trust me, trust her." He pointed at Adelaide, who nodded. After a second, Clara nodded. "Okay. Okay." He paused. "As well as all the other times." He stepped between the women, taking their hands. "Ready? Geronimo."

They leaped off the edge and Adelaide was very glad she was not afraid of heights.

Everything shifted almost instantly to a completely white room that had bits of metal suspended in the air, seemingly coming from an explosion.

"The heart of the TARDIS," the Doctor whispered. "The engine, it's already exploded. It must have been the collision with the salvage ship."

Clara looked around, shifting uncomfortably. "We're not dead."

"The TARDIS froze it."

"So…so it's safe?"

"It's temporary," Adelaide said. "Eventually this entire place will erupt."

"There's no way I can save her now," the Doctor mumbled. "She's just always been there for me, and taken care of me, and now it's my turn and I don't know what to do. I think it just…" Clara, who'd ended up standing closer to the Doctor, reached for his hand. He grabbed it, spotting the marks on the back of it – Big Friendly Button. "Oh, Clara…oh…" he showed it to Adelaide. "You are beautiful. Beautiful fragile human skin. Like parchment. Thank you." He pulled out his sonic. "The rift in time, all the memories leaking out. I just need to find the moment we crashed. I need to find the music." He grinned, hearing something, and rushed out of the room.

Adelaide gestured for Clara to follow her.

|C-S|

The Doctor used the trace from Clara's hand to guide them to the console room. There was a crack in the wall, a time rift. "The time rift," the Doctor breathed, going up to it. "Recent past, possible future."

"What are you going to do?"

"Rewrite today, I hope." He pulled the remote he'd taken from Gregor's pocket earlier, giving it to Adelaide to write on with her sonic. "We've thrown this through the rift before. I need to make sure this time. Going to take it in there myself. There might be a certain amount of yelling."

Clara frowned. "It's going to hurt?"

"Very likely, yes." He stepped towards the rift.

"Wait! All those things you two said. How we've met before, how I died."

Adelaide touched Clara's shoulder. "You'll forget everything we said."

She shook her head. "I don't want to forget. Not all of it. The library, I saw it. You were both mentioned in a book."

The Time Lords tensed. "We're mentioned in a lot of books."

"You call yourselves 'Doctor' and 'Adelaide'. Why do you do that? You have names. I've seen them."

The Doctor clenched his jaw. "If I rewrite today, you won't remember. You won't go looking for our names."

Clara frowned. "You'll still have secrets."

"It's better that way." The Doctor glanced at Adelaide before stepping through the crack.

|C-S|

The Doctor forced his way through the rift, seeing himself, Adelaide, and Clara around the console. "Magnetic hobble-field," he was saying. "We're flying right into it."

Adelaide grabbed Clara, pulling her back. "Clara, stay by me."

"Please tell me there's a button you can press to fix this."

"Oh, yes." He nodded. "Big friendly button."

"You're lying."

"Yep."

"To stop me freaking out?"

"Is it working?"

"Not so much!"

The Doctor moved forward, himself thrown against the railing. "Doctor! Doctor, I'm from your future. We haven't got long to reset time." He tossed the device, vanishing as it happened. The device rolled towards where Clara had been thrown and the human touched it, burning her hand. "No!" the Doctor grabbed it. "Ah ha!" he laughed. "Big friendly button!" And pressed it.

|C-S|

The Doctor was working on something on the console, Adelaide didn't really know what, while she sat on a nearby step reading. They were both waiting for Clara to return from her shower. "I feel exhausted," Clara said, walking in as she dried her hair. "I feel…"

"We've had two days crammed into the space of one?" the Doctor offered.

Clara frowned. "Why would you say that?"

"I don't know. I say stuff. Ignore me."

"People usually do," Adelaide called. "He rambles often."

The Doctor grinned at her before sobering his expression for Clara. "Do you feel safe?"

"Of course."

"Give me a number out of ten. Ten being 'whoo-hoo', one being 'argh'."

Clara eyed him, leaning against the console. "You're being weird."

"He usually is."

"I need to know if you feel safe," the Doctor continued. "I need to know you're not afraid."

"Of?"

"The future. Running away with a spaceman and a scientist in a box. Anything could happen to you."

Clara nodded, grinning. "That's what I'm counting on. Push the button."

 **A/N: What a wonderful team these three make together :)**


	23. Her Monsters

**Her Monsters**

The Time Lords stepped out of the TARDIS arm in arm, dressed for the times, with Clara a few steps behind them. The human had been quite excited to help Adelaide pick out a dress, though many of her suggestions were incredibly inappropriate for the time. She seemed to have been under the impression that Adelaide would consent to wear a dress that showed an inappropriate amount of skin for traveling to Victorian England.

Thankfully, she'd finally relented and given her approval of the dark green dress Adelaide now sported.

In truth, the Time Lady had been reminded of Donna picking a very specific dress for her to wear to the party in the nineteen twenties, though Donna had had much more control over the selection than Adelaide had allowed Clara.

By now, the companion was just smiling at the Time Lords.

The Doctor sighed once he realized where they were. "Okay, so…not London 1893."

Adelaide nodded. "Yorkshire 1893. Rather close."

Clara shook her head. "You're making a habit of this, getting us lost."

"Sorry." He shrugged. "It's much better than it used to be. I once spent a hell of a long time trying to get a gobby Australian to Heathrow Airport."

"And that's why you don't pick a TARDIS that needs multiple pilots when you're the only one there."

The Doctor stuck his tongue out at her for that.

They stopped when they heard a woman scream somewhere in the distance. The trio looked at each other and, without speaking, took off running towards the scream. They reached the place rather quickly, finding a group of people gathered on the small bridge over a canal, looking at something in the water.

"It's another one!" a man shouted, police restraining him. "Don't you see? Another victim!" The trio looked over, seeing the body with unnaturally bright skin floating in the water. "Why won't any one of you listen?"

The Doctor spun. "We'll listen."

|C-S|

The man, whose name was Edmund Thursday, brought them to a factory named Sweetville. "Mrs. Winifred Gillyflower. An astonishing woman. Prize-winning chemist and mechanical engineer. So why…"

"Why has she decided to open up a match factory in her old hometown?" the Doctor finished.

Edmund nodded. "And no one who ever goes to live there ever seems to come out."

|C-S|

Once the body had been fished out of the canal, Edmund brought them to the morgue to study it. Apparently, the other similar cases had been brought to this morgue as well. "Same as the rest," Edmund said. "All dead from causes unknown and their flesh glowing."

The coroner nodded. "Like something manky in a coal cellar. They keep turning up in't'canal. The Crimson Horror."

The Doctor pointed at him. "Ooo, good name! Hey, that's good, isn't it? The Crimson Horror. I wonder what it is."

Adelaide bent over the body, spotting something in the eye. "Optography…"

The Doctor bent over as well, spotting the same thing as Adelaide, before leaning back to look at Clara. "Old Romany superstition that the eye of a dead person retains an image of the last thing it sees. Nonsense, of course, unless…"

"The chemical composition of the body has been massively corrupted." She touched a bit of the skin with the back of her sonic, a bit of the red coming off at the touch. She stepped back to the coroner's lab in order to test the substance. The Doctor didn't bother helping her, though he did step over to watch. "An organic poison," she told him eventually. "A type of venom."

He nodded, looking to Edmund. "And you think it's connected to Sweetville?"

"I do."

"Well then, we need a plan!"

|C-S|

The time travelers stood before Mrs. Gillyflower herself, having entered the woman's factory/gated community. "Doctor Smith, Mrs. Smith, Miss Smith," Gillyflower smiled at them. "Oh yes, you'll do very nicely."

"Oh, grand," the Doctor had put on a heavy Northern accent. "Smashing. Eh, the girls and I couldn't be more chuffed, could we, love?" He wrapped an arm around Adelaide, as Gillyflower was under the impression that she and the Doctor were married while Clara was his unmarried cousin.

"Why don't we start with the tour?" Gillyflower said, guiding them out into the courtyard and various houses that lined it. "Sweetville will provide you with everything you need. You won't have to worry about a thing ever again."

"The name," Clara said, copying the Doctor's accent, "Sweetville."

"Yes?"

"Why not name it after yourself. After all, it's your creation."

"Gillyflowertown," the Doctor offered. "Gillyflowerland! You could have rollercoasters!"

Gillyflower stopped walking. "It is named in tribute to my partner."

"Your late partner?" Adelaide asked.

"No, my silent partner. Mr. Sweet likes to keep himself to himself." Gillyflower gestured to the door they'd stopped before. "Shall we move on?"

The Doctor turned to look at it. "Who lives here?"

Gillyflower laughed. "Oh, names don't matter here. All you need to know is we only recruit the brightest and the best." She patted Clara's cheek and opened the door, revealing the pristine room and the pristine couple sitting frozen inside a bell jar.

The trio just had enough time to look at each other before men and women advanced upon them.

|C-S|

Adelaide was having quite a few horrible flashbacks as she stood there frozen in a red shell. She felt like she was trapped inside Caroline, or really the fob watch, again. Her body was there, the world was there, she could process some information about her surrounding, but she knew it wasn't real. She knew it was separate. She knew she was trapped, Time Lord consciousness trapped in something far too small.

Thankfully, this time the Doctor was beside her, their hands clasped. She could feel that. He'd woken just before they'd been submerged, she just as she dipped below the surface, and grabbed for her. They'd been sent to the reject pile and rescued by Ada, who'd been ordered to destroy them.

Of course, rescued here meant chained together in a dark room and left to suffer, because it was painful. This venom was not meant for the strength of Time Lords, but even they couldn't break it on their own.

One of the days they'd been there Edmund, also a reject, had burst in and died before them. Ada had taken him away when she'd brought their daily meal.

Essentially all the Time Lords could do was rattle their chains, which was extremely annoying.

But there was a schedule - Adelaide clung to it, in this time of imprisonment - which the Time Lords had identified, so they knew that when the door rattled at an unexpected time, it meant a stranger was attempting to open it. The Doctor managed to drag himself - and, given he was not going to let go of her hand, Adelaide - to the door and reach a hand through the hatch, trying to reach whoever had come.

"Alright, mate," Jenny called. If Adelaide could have laughed, she would have. "You just stay calm now!" The Doctor rattled the chains. "I could open this door. Would you like that?" He rattled them again. "Thought you might. But you and me has got to come to an arrangement. Savvy?" Again. "Now, you stand well back, do you hear me? I don't mean no harm to you, but you try anything funny and I'll leave you here to rot. Is that understood?" Again, and the Doctor moved back. "Right." The lock clicked and the door swung open, confirming the voice's identity with a gasp. "Doctor? Adelaide?"

Given Jenny's expression and the fact she was here in the first place, Adelaide was very thankful that Vastra and the human were fully capable investigators on their own.

"What's happened to you?" Jenny asked, stepping forward. "Can't you speak?" Adelaide managed to widen her eyes at the woman enough that the woman noticed. "Right." She grabbed the small pile of their clothes. "Right, we're getting out of here." Thankfully, Jenny was a skilled lock picker and had the Time Lords out in less than a minute.

In order to help them move, Jenny supported one Time Lord on either side - the pair consenting to hold hands behind her back - and pulled them along, keeping watch as they moved. "Come on," she whispered at them, passing a lift they could hear moving. "Come on!" Jenny got them around the corner as the lift arrived, bringing them into the room with the vat of poison. "Oh my God…" Jenny breathed, glancing at them, and Adelaide tried her hardest to gesture towards a booth against the wall. "What is it? You want to go in there?"

Jenny helped them inside, giving them their clothes as well, and the Doctor grabbed his sonic. She had to hide as two people walked past the entrance, but the quiet buzzing sound stopping gave her a second of warning before the Time Lords leapt out, back in their Victorian clothes, both rather giddy.

"Ah!" the Doctor cheered. "Missed us?" He ran down the hall, leaping and spinning.

"Doctor?" Adelaide called, drawing him back.

"Jenny. Jenny, Jenny, Jenny, Jenny…just when you think your favorite lock-picking Victorian chambermaid will never turn up." He spun to Adelaide and hugged her as tightly as he possibly could.

She never thought she'd say it, but physical contact felt quite nice at the moment. Adelaide could have hugged the Doctor for an eternity.

When he pulled back, the Doctor stared at her for a moment before finally stepping back. "Right. Mrs. Gillyflower." He rubbed his hands together. "We've got to stop her."

"And find Clara," she reminded him.

The Doctor nodded. "Poor Clara. Where's Clara?" He grabbed Adelaide's hand, the pair hurrying down the corridor.

"Clara?" Jenny shook her head. "Doctor, Adelaide, wait!"

"Can't. Clara. Got to find."

Jenny jogged to reach them. "What happened to you? How long have you been like that?"

"Days? Weeks. Don't know. Long story. I'll keep it short."

|C-S|

The Doctor managed to stretch the story to fill the majority of the time they were searching the factory for some sign of Clara. "Poor Edmund must have come looking for us and then fallen into a vat of the pure venom," he finally said. "Or was pushed. Didn't stand a chance."

Jenny frowned. "What is that stuff, though?"

"Deadly poison," Adelaide told her. "Diluted properly, it asks as a preservative and Mrs. Gillyflower's been dipping her pilgrims in it. The process didn't work on us, possibly because we're not human, and we were placed into the reject pile."

"Preserve them against what?"

"Well, according to her, the coming apocalypse." The Doctor made the crazy symbol.

"'When the End of Days is come and judgement rains down upon us all…'"

"Gillyflower's sermon," Adelaide said.

Jenny waved a hand. "It's nothing. Madame will come looking for me. We'd best get on."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, Clara. Got to find Clara."

"But Clara's dead, isn't she?"

The Time Lords looked at each other, the Doctor hesitating. "It's complicated." They moved out into the courtyard.

"Are we talking about the same person?" Jenny asked them, the Time Lords looking into the houses as they passed. "About that Clara?"

"I couldn't see much from where I was," the Doctor said, avoiding the issue. "Adelaide couldn't either."

"We believe she survived the process. It's likely she's here."

Jenny shook her head. "But Clara died. The Ice Lady…"

"It's complicated," Adelaide said, the Doctor cheering when he spotted Clara in one of the houses. He burst into the house, finding Clara inside a bell jar with a man standing behind her.

|C-S|

The Doctor paced in front of the booth they'd put Clara inside to cure her. "Can she be revived, like you were?" Jenny asked them.

"Very likely," Adelaide said, the Doctor grabbing her hand as he stopped in front of her.

Jenny tensed. "Doctor…" they turned, seeing a group of pilgrims stepping up with weapons.

"Oh, great," the Doctor sighed. "Great. Attack of the supermodels. Time for a plan."

"Nah," Jenny started to remove her bonnet. "This one's on me." She took of her gown, revealing the tight leather outfit underneath. She dealt with the pilgrims rather quickly, leaving the Time Lords with wide eyes.

"That is a plan," the Doctor breathed. But more pilgrims stepped up, obviously too many for even Jenny to handle. "Okay, time for a new plan. Run!"

They hadn't even started running when Strax shouted from down the hall, shooting at the pilgrims. Vastra followed him, holding a sword. "Let's go!"

"No, ma'am!" Jenny called. "We're not escaping! We've got to help the Doctor and Adelaide with Clara."

Vastra stared at the Time Lords, expecting an explanation. The Doctor just started sonicing the booth again. "Long story."

Strax jogged up again, having gone to check the pilgrims were gone. "What now, Madame? We could lay mimetic cluster mines."

Vastra sighed. "Strax."

"Or dig trenches and fill them with acid."

"Strax! You're overexcited." She frowned. "Have you been eating Miss Jenny's sherbet fancies again?"

"No."

"Go outside and wait for me until I call for you."

Strax stepped forward. "But Madame, I…"

"Go!"

He pouted, stalking off. "I'm going to go play with my grenades."

The Doctor looked into the booth when his sonic made a specific noise. "Okay, I think she's about done." He opened it, though Clara's eyes were still closed. "I know who you think she is, but she isn't. She can't be."

"I was right, then," Vastra said. "You and Clara have unfinished business."

Clara fell forwards out of the booth into the Doctor's arms as she woke. He grinned, laughing. "There, there. Hello, stranger."

"Doctor…" Clara breathed, the Doctor helping her stand and spot Vastra and Jenny. "Hi." She looked between the Time Lords. "What's going on?"

"Haven't you heard?" the Doctor put on his accent again. "There's trouble at t'mill!" He pointed at Vastra. "She's a lizard."

 **A/N: Adelaide doesn't tend to get vulnurable. Good thing Jenny and Vastra were on the case ;)**


	24. Her Mystery

**Her Mystery**

Vastra sighed, gesturing for them to follow her. "I believe we've determined the source of the poison. My people once ruled this world, as well you know, but we did not rule it alone. Just as humanity fights a daily battle against nature, so did we. And our greatest plague, the most virulent enemy, was the repulsive red leech."

"Ooo, the repulsive red leech." The Doctor hit the lift button. "Nah. On balance I think I prefer the Crimson Horror."

Adelaide shook her head. "What is it, exactly?"

"A tiny parasite. It infected our drinking water. And once in our systems, it secreted a fatal poison."

She nodded. "If it's been around since then, it's possible it's evolved. Or been helped."

Clara frowned. "I've been thinking. The chimney…"

The Doctor waved a hand at her. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Way past that now. Yucky red parasite from the time of the dinosaurs pitches up in Victorian Yorkshire. Didn't see that one coming."

"Yeah, but the chimney…"

"But what's the connection to Mrs. Gillyflower?" he spun in a circle. "Judgement will rain down on us all. An empty mill."

Clara turned to Adelaide when the Doctor didn't appear willing to listen. "A chimney that doesn't blow smoke."

The Time Lady grinned. "I should have gotten a companion ages ago."

|C-S|

They managed to hide behind a group of crates and barrels on the main floor of the factory, watching the pilgrims. "She's going to poison the air," the Doctor breathed.

Jenny frowned. "How?"

A pilgrim pulled a lever, opening a large door to reveal a rocket. "With that, I should think," Clara said.

"And the poison," Adelaide added, nodding towards pilgrims carrying a large vial of the poison.

The Doctor clapped his hands. "Alright, gang, I've got a plan." He stood up, knocking over something next to them before immediately dropping down again as the pilgrims looked over. "Shush." They stayed down until everyone looked away again. "Okay."

|C-S|

The Time Lords and Clara stopped walking when they saw Ada sitting in a corner crying. The woman looked up when she heard them coming closer. "Who is that? Who is there?" The Doctor knelt before her, Adelaide beside him, and gently brought one of Ada's hands to touch his face, Adelaide taking her other hand. "You. It's you. My monsters. You've come back. But you're…"

"Warm," the Doctor nodded, removing her hand but still holding it. "And alive, thanks to you, Ada. You saved us from your mother's human rubbish tip. Now then, what's wrong?"

"She does not want me, monsters. I am not to be chosen." Ada shook her head. "Perhaps it was my own sin, the blackness in my heart that my father saw in me."

The Doctor squeezed her hand. "Ada, no. That's nonsense. Stupid, backward nonsense, and you know it."

"You know it," Adelaide told her.

Clara frowned, stepping closer to them. "What is it?"

Ada looked in her direction. "Who is that?"

"I'm…" Clara knelt down, "I'm a friend. A friend of theirs."

"Then you are fortunate indeed. It isn't good to be alone."

The Doctor nodded. "Now, Ada, I need you to tell us something. Who is Mr. Sweet? Ada?"

Ada looked away from them. "Oh, dear monsters…"

"Please, tell us."

"I cannot! Even now, I cannot. I cannot betray Mama."

The Doctor sighed, exchanging a look with Adelaide. "Well, come with us, then. There's something you need to know."

|C-S|

Gillyflower spun when she heard the sonic as the time travelers stepped into her office. She chuckled when she saw them. "Oh, you do seem to keep turning up like a bad penny."

The Doctor shrugged. "Force of habit."

"Can I offer you something? Tea? Seed cake? Oh, a glass of Amontillado?"

He wrapped an arm around Adelaide. "Now, don't start liking her just because she's polite."

"No, thank you," Adelaide said, ignoring the Doctor. "We've had quite enough already."

"A skinful, you might say," the Doctor added.

"Very funny."

"Yes. I'm the Doctor, this is Adelaide, you're nuts, and we're going to stop you."

Gillyflower raised her eyebrows. "I'm afraid Mr. Sweet and I cannot allow that."

"Ah, yes." He looked to Adelaide. "Would it be impolite to ask her why she and Mr. Sweet are petrifying the workforce with diluted prehistoric leech venom?"

Adelaide sighed. "My answer is inconsequential and you know it."

Clara shook her head, stepping forward. "So when do we get to meet him, this silent partner of yours? Why's he so shy?"

Gillyflower touched her chest. "Mr. Sweet is always with us."

"You seem to have a very close relationship, you and your pal."

"Oh yes, Doctor," Gillyflower laughed. "Exceedingly close. Symbiotic, you might say." She pulled open the top of her gown to reveal the large bright red leech attached to her chest. It looked up for a second before returning to Gillyflower's chest. The woman just took a seat, feeding it sugar.

Clara made a face. "What is it?"

"A survivor!" Gillyflower said. "He has grown fat on the fifth humanity has pumped into the rivers. That's where I found him."

"Very enterprising."

"His needs are simple, and in return, he gives me his nectar."

Adelaide frowned. "Mrs. Gillyflower, may I presume that you are fully aware that Mr. Sweet's venom could wipe out all life on this planet?" The woman just grinned, walking over to the control panel and pulling a lever, turning on the red lights of the factory chimney.

"Planning a little fireworks party, are we?" the Doctor asked.

"You have forced me to advance the Great Work somewhat, but my colossal scheme remains as it was. My rocket will explode high in the atmosphere, raining down Mr. Sweet's beneficence onto all humanity."

"And wiping us all out," Clara gasped. "You can't!"

"My new Adam and Eves will sleep for but a few months before stepping out into a golden dawn." She clasped her hands in front of her. "Is it not beautiful?"

"Tell us about Ada, Mrs. Gillyflower," the Doctor said.

Gillyflower frowned, blinking. "What?"

"Your daughter," the Doctor prompted. "You do remember your daughter? Tell us about your daughter."

Gillyflower scoffed. "How can you speak of such trivia when my hour is at hand? The child is of no consequence."

"Is that why you experimented on her?" Adelaide asked.

"Experimented?"

"It's rather obvious. The pattern of scarring…she was your guinea pig."

Clara gasped. "God…"

Gillyflower shrugged. "Sometimes sacrifices must be made."

The Doctor frowned. "Sacrifices?"

"It was necessary. I had to find out how much of the venom would produce an anti-toxin to immunize myself. Don't you see? It was necessary!"

"Mama?" Ada asked from behind them, having come to the doorway. "Is it…is it true?"

"Ada…"

"It is." Ada shook her head. "It's true. True."

Gillyflower stepped to her daughter, holding out her hands. "Ada, listen to me."

"You hag!" Ada swung her cane as she moved towards her mother. "You perfidious hag! You virago! You harpy! All these years I have helped you, served you, looked after you. Do they count for nothing, nothing at all?" She hit her mother with the cane.

Gillyflower tried to defend herself. "Stop, stop!" Ada fell back, but Gillyflower just fell back against the door.

Clara ran towards a nearby chair as the Time Lords pulled out their sonics. "Hang on, we've got sonics."

"Yeah?" Clara picked up the chair. "I've got a chair!" she smashed it into the controls, sending off a large shower of sparks.

"No!" Gillyflower shouted, unable to do anything.

The Doctor grinned. "Yeah, that worked. I'm afraid your rocket isn't going anywhere, Mrs. G."

Gillyflower turned to her daughter again. "Please, come to me, Ada. Oh, my child." She pulled the girl into a hug. "You have always been so very" she spun her to the side and put a small gun to her head "useful."

The Doctor held out a hand. "No, Mrs. Gillyflower."

"Please, Mama," Ada cried. "No more. No more."

"And now, if you'll please forgive us, we must be going. It is long past Ada's bedtime." Gillyflower pulled Ada through the door, locking it behind them.

Adelaide grabbed Clara before she could run forward again. "If we chase her, she'll shoot Ada."

Clara shook her head. "She wouldn't."

"She would."

The Doctor grabbed another chair, lifting it over his head. "Chairs are useful!" he threw it out the window, giving them an escape route.

|C-S|

The time travelers ran across Sweetville to where the rocket was, running up the stairs they knew Gillyflower was dragging Ada up. "Just let her go, Mrs. Gillyflower!" the Doctor called up. "Let Ada go!"

Gillyflower smirked. "Secondary firing mechanism! Mr. Sweet and I are too smart for you, after all."

"Just let your daughter go, Mrs. Gillyflower!"

Gillyflower shoved her daughter away from her, making Ada fall down the stairs and pointed her gun at her. "Ada!"

"Shoot if you wish, Mama," Ada told her. "It is of no matter, for you killed me a long time ago."

The Doctor tried to reach Ada, but Gillyflower shot at him, forcing him back and letting her focus on the controls. "I'll labor night and day to be a pilgrim," Gillyflower sang, pulling a lever. The Time Lord managed to reach Ada quick enough to shield her, Adelaide protecting Clara. "Now, Mr. Sweet, now the whole world will taste your lethal kiss!"

Adelaide straightened. "I don't believe so, Mrs. Gillyflower." She pointed up, where Jenny and Vastra had appeared holding the large vial of poison they'd seen earlier.

Gillyflower glared. "Very well, then. If I can't take the world with me, you will have to do. Die, you freaks! Die! Die!" she pointed her gun at Vastra and Jenny.

"Put down your weapon, human female!" Strax shouted from the top of the chimney, pointing his gun at Gillyflower. The woman fired at him, but he returned fire, sending Gillyflower backward down the middle of the chimney. She landed with a terrible thud and the group hurried down to find her and Mr. Sweet, who was crawling away.

Gillyflower reached for the leech. "No. No, Mr. Sweet, where are you going? You can't leave me now, Mr. Sweet!"

Clara leaned towards the Time Lords. "What's it doing?"

"It knows she's dying," Adelaide told her. "It needs another host."

"Mr. Sweet!" Gillyflower paused when she heard Ada's cane, the woman coming down the stairs towards them. "Ada? Ada. Are you there?"

Ada knelt before her mother. "I'm here, Mama."

"Forgive me, my child. Forgive me."

Ada shook her head. "Never."

Gillyflower smiled. "That's my girl." She died as the rocket exploded above them, harmless.

Jenny pointed to the leech, which was still pulling itself across the floor. "What will you do with that thing?"

"Take it back to the Jurassic era," Adelaide offered. "Out of harm's way…" she was cut off when Ada used her cane, quite effectively, to beat Mr. Sweet to death. "Or there's that."

|C-S|

The next day, the time travelers, Vastra, Jenny, Strax, and Ada returned to where they'd left the TARDIS. "Right," the Doctor said, rubbing her hands together. "Right, London. We were heading for London, weren't we?"

Clara frowned. "Was there any particular reason?"

"No," the Doctor said quickly. "No, just thought you might like it."

Clara chuckled. "Yeah, maybe had enough of Victorian values for a bit."

He shrugged. "You're the boss."

"Am I?"

"No, Adelaide is." He took Adelaide's hand. "Or I am, on the rare day, when she's feeling particularly nice." He leaned closer, tapping the side of his nose. "Best to assume it's always her." Clara shook her head at them, stepping inside the TARDIS and leaving the Time Lords to walk up to the other four. "Now, Ada, we'd love to stay and help clear up the mess, but…"

"I know, dear monsters." Ada smiled. "You have things to do."

"And what about you?"

Ada sighed. "Oh, there are many things a bright young lady can do to occupy her time. It's time I stepped out of the darkness and into the light."

The Doctor nodded. "Good luck, Ada. You know, I think you will be just…" he stepped closer, kissing her cheek, "splendid."

"Good luck, Ada," Adelaide nodded.

They stepped to Vastra, Strax, and Jenny, who still had the poison. "Well, thanks a million, you three, as ever. Have some Pontefract cakes on us. I love Pontefract cakes. See you around, eh, I shouldn't wonder." They stepped back again, but Jenny spoke.

"But Doctor, Adelaide…that girl, Clara. You haven't explained."

"No, we haven't."

"Once we have the answer, we shall be certain to share it with you," Adelaide nodded, smiling, before they stepped into the TARDIS.

As much as Adelaide liked mysteries, she was getting a bit annoyed at having almost no possible explanations present themselves yet.

She blamed the Doctor. He kept distracting her.

 **A/N: Another successful adventure! But this next episode... ;)**


	25. He Wants

**He Wants**

The Doctor had been surprisingly okay with learning that the children Clara nannied had figured out she'd been traveling in time, especially when they wanted to go on an adventure. Apparently, he'd been looking for some excuse to come to Hedgewick's World, and having two children around gave him the perfect leverage to convince Adelaide to let them come to the amusement park.

He leaped out of the TARDIS, spinning in a small circle, with Adelaide a few steps behind. Honestly, it didn't look like she'd expected; if anything, it looked like they'd just landed on Earth's moon, save for the breathable air and the wrong gravity. The children and Clara poked their heads out of the TARDIS, all three looking a mixture of confused and intrigued.

"Well, here we are!" the Doctor announced, pointing at the American flag in front of them. "Hedgewick's World!" He spun again. "The biggest and best amusement park there will ever be, and we've got a golden ticket!" He leaped onto a rock. "Eh? Eh? Fun!"

Clara lifted her eyebrows. "Fun?"

Angie crossed her arms. "Your stupid box can't even get us to the right place. This is like a moon base or something."

"It's not the moon," Adelaide told her. "And manners, Angie, please."

The Doctor pointed at her. "If you don't remember your manners, Adelaide won't like you, and you want Adelaide to like you."

"Actually," Artie cut in, "I think it does look like the moon, only dirtier."

"It's not the moon. My guess is that it was once a Spacey Zoomer ride." The Doctor jumped back down, wrapping an arm around Adelaide as she spoke.

"Psst!" someone called, and they all turned to find a man in a hat looking through a doorway cut into a rock. "Excuse me. I don't suppose you happen to be my lift off planet? Dave's Discount Interstellar Removals?"

Clara shook her head. "Afraid not."

"They were meant to be here six months ago. Well, that's Dave for you, see? Unreliable."

"Stay where you are!" a woman ordered, making them turn again.

"Oops," the man ducked away again as a group of soldiers entered the area. The Time Lords and Clara stepped in front of the children, blocking them.

"Throw down your weapons and identify yourselves

The Doctor held up the golden ticket he'd gotten. "No. No weapons! Golden ticket! Spacey Zoomer?" he jumped in place. "Free ice cream?"

"Who are you? This planet is closed, by Imperial order."

He pulled out his psychic paper. "How's this?"

"Oh. Welcome, Proconsul. I wish they'd told us you were coming. Any news of the Emperor?"

"Oh, the Emperor…" the Doctor nodded. "No, no, none that you'd, er…"

The captain nodded. "We pray for his return. If there is anything you need, my platoon is at your service."

The Doctor pointed at her. "Right. Righty-o. Well, carry on, Captain," he saluted the woman and she turned back to the soldiers.

"Platoon, let's move out! On the double. Two, three, four! Two, three four! Two, three, four!"

One the troops had left, the man reappeared. "Have they gone?"

"Yes."

The man grinned. "Uniforms give me the heebie-jeebies. Come on. They can't stop me being here, but they don't like it." He gestured for them to follow, stepping back into the small tunnel into the rock. A bit down the corridor, they could see the rest of the amusement park.

Adelaide and the Doctor had gotten their dates incredibly wrong. No one had been here for some time.

"Ha, ha!" the Doctor still cheered, satisfied that he'd proven they hadn't landed on the moon. "You see? I told you it was amazing. Well, it used to be."

The man nodded. "It closed down. Wish I'd known that before I landed here. But let me show you my collection. Come alone, follow me, this way." He started walking again. "This way in, come on." He brought them down a few steps into a room full of waxworks. There were some chandeliers, but it was dark enough that the Doctor took Adelaide's hand. "Welcome to my show. Webley's World of Wonders!" the man threw his arms out. "Miracles, marvels, and more await you. I am Impresario Webley. You see before you waxwork representations of the famous and the infamous. Anybody here play chess?" Both the Doctor and Adelaide put their hands up, though the Doctor was far more enthusiastic about it. Webley, instead, pointed at Artie. "Perhaps you, young man?"

Artie straightened, looking excited. "Actually, I'm in my school chess club."

"Ah, follow me." Webley guided them into another room where he'd set up a chessboard, an empty chair, and something rather large covered in cloth. "Now, let me demonstrate to you all the wonder of the age, the miracle of modernity. We defeated them all a thousand years ago, but now he's back, to destroy you. Behold, the enemy!" he whipped the cloth off to reveal a tarnished Cyberman.

The Doctor grabbed Artie and Angie, pulling them down. "Cyberman! Get down!"

But Adelaide didn't move. "It's no danger," she told the Doctor.

Webley pointed at her. "Precisely, beautiful lady. We all know there are no more living Cybermen. What you are seeing is a miracle. The six hundred and ninety-ninth wonder of the universe, as displayed before the Imperial court, and only here to destroy you at chess." As Webley spoke, the Doctor moved forward, sonicing the Cyberman to ensure it truly meant them no harm. "Careful now. An empty shell, and yet it moves. How?"

Angie scoffed. "Magic?"

"That might well be, young lady, but a single penny wins you five Imperial shillings if you can beat this empty shell at chess."

Artie frowned. "I haven't got a penny," he rummaged through his pocket, "but I've got a sandwich."

Webley considered it before plucking it from his hand. "Alright, take a seat." He set the board for the boy. "It is free of all devices," he opened a panel to reveal the empty inside, "and yet it has never been beaten. Would you like to make the first move, young man?"

Artie moved his pawn, with the Cyberman moving one of his own. The boy moved to make another, but the Doctor shook his head. "Oh no, Artie. No, don't do that, it…" Artie did it anyways, already checkmated. "That's a fool's mate."

Webley took a bite of the sandwich. "If you can tell me how it works, I'll give you a silver penny."

"I think you do it with mirrors?" Angie offered.

"Reasonable option, but this is nowhere near as advanced." Adelaide stepped up to the Cyberman, crouched down, and opened a panel to reveal the small man inside, clearly controlling it. "Hello," Adelaide said, nodding and raising her eyebrows.

The man grinned, shaking his head ever so slightly. "Hello."

"Would you like help?" she held out a hand, helping him out of the chair he'd been sitting in.

"They call me Porridge," he said, stretching. "Oh, it's good to be out of that box."

"For you, Miss," Webley took a penny from behind Angie's ear, "an Imperial penny." He brought them back into the main room, the Doctor and Adelaide pausing for a second before joining. "I have not one but three Cybermen in my collection." Webley pulled cloth off more Cybermen.

Angie looked to the side, where there was a waxwork of a regal looking man. "Is that the King?"

"Emperor," Porridge corrected quickly, making Angie frown and Adelaide look over. "Ludens Nimrod Kendrick, etc, etc, the forty-first. Defender of Humanity, Imperator of known space."

"He looks a bit full of himself," Clara called.

"Don't say things like that about the Imperial family. You can end up on the run for the rest of your life."

Artie frowned. "They don't sound very nice."

"Go on," Porridge looked at Webley. "If the kids want to ride the Spacey Zoomer, then I can operate the gravity console." He gestured for everyone to follow him, though that time it was Angie who lagged for a few seconds, comparing her penny and the statue, before she was called on after the rest of them.

|C-S|

Clara watched as Angie and Artie enjoyed the Spacey Zoomer, taking a few pictures on her phone. The Doctor continued investigating while Adelaide went to speak, very quickly, with Porridge. She just stepped into where he was controlling everything for the privacy. "Don't worry. I understand wanting to run and hide for a bit to escape responsibility, Emperor."

He frowned at her, immediately defensive. "How do you know who I am?"

"I've met the previous Emperor. You too, though you were likely too young to remember. Adelaide." She smiled. "But your secret is safe with me."

"You won't even tell…your partner?" Adelaide tensed slightly at that, something Porridge noticed. "Sorry, I just assumed."

"Not even him." Adelaide nodded and stepped back just as the Doctor walked back up, having paused investigating, and Porridge stopped the ride.

"I think that was the most fun I've had in my whole life!" Artie laughed, running up to Clara.

"It was…okay," Angie said, though no one really believed her.

"Clara, I think outer space is actually very interesting."

Clara nodded. "Right." She started to bring them back towards the TARDIS. "Wonderful day out, Doctor, Adelaide, but time to get the kids home."

The Doctor moved to block them. "Yeah, er, no, not actually ready to leave."

"Why not?"

"I don't know. Reasons." He looked to Adelaide, hoping for her assistance.

"What reasons?"

"Funny insect collection," Adelaide offered. "He's just decided to start one and we spotted some earlier. Hasn't shut up since."

The Doctor stuck out a tongue at her for that.

|C-S|

The kids ended up being deposited on the sofas that Webley had, starting to get tired, especially after their round on the ride. "How long do we have to stay here?" Angie groaned.

"Not long," the Doctor told her. "Have a nap. We'll wake you when we're ready to leave."

Porridge brought them another cushion. "Comfy?"

Clara adjusted the blankets. "Sleep well."

"Good night."

The Doctor turned off the light as he left the room, holding Adelaide's hand, with Clara and Porridge following, though the Time Lord leaned back into the room a second later. "Don't wander off! Now, I'm not just saying 'don't wander off', I mean it. Otherwise you'll wander off and the next thing you know, somebody's going to have to start rescuing somebody."

Angie frowned. "From what?"

He winced. "Nothing. Nobody needs rescuing from anything. Don't wander off. Sweet dreams." He left the room, catching up to where Clara, Porridge, and Adelaide were walking. Adelaide did hang back in order to help the Doctor investigate, both of them using their sonics to scan for any more signs of the little insects.

They hadn't been looking long when suddenly the Doctor called out, "Clara, did you tell Angie she could go to the barracks?"

She sighed. "You know I didn't. She hasn't…"

The Doctor pointed. "She's just gone in there."

Clara groaned. "Come on."

|C-S|

They found Angie walking and talking with the captain, the woman leading Angie around the barracks. "So, tell me about the little bloke."

Angie shrugged. "Well, you must have seen him."

"Angie!" Clara shouted, rushing over. "Angie!"

"She always has to turn up and spoil everything! I wasn't doing anything! Why can't you just leave me alone?"

They were interrupted by a loud crash and the doors being broken apart, revealing a Cyberman. "Cyberman!"

Clara grabbed Angie, pulling her behind the group. "Angie!"

The soldiers scrambled for their weapons, some ducking behind tables. "Attack formation!" the captain ordered, but no one seemed ready to listen. One man even tried to attack the Cyberman with no weapon in hand. "No! Attack formation, quickly!"

They started to shoot at the Cyberman, actually making it pause. "Upgrade in progress."

"Angie!" Clara tried to grab the human, but in a blink the Cyberman had grabbed Angie and carried her away, the girl screaming. "Angie!"

The Doctor grabbed Clara before she could chase after the Cyberman. "Clara! Clara!"

The captain gasped, shaking her head. "That was a Cyberman. But they're extinct…"

"Listen to me," the Doctor told Clara, squeezing her shoulders, "we will get her back." He stepped back when the human nodded. "Captain, a word please." The woman hurried over. "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I take it your platoon doesn't do much fighting?"

The captain scoffed. "What do you expect?"

Clara frowned. "What?"

"We're a punishment platoon. It's why they sent us out here, so we can't get into trouble."

The Doctor nodded. "Right, right, well, okay. As Imperial Consul," he took the badge from the captain, "I'm putting Clara in charge." He pinned it to Clara's jacket. "Clara, stay alive until we get back, and don't let anyone blow up this planet."

Clara's eyes widened. "Is that something they're likely to do?"

"Go somewhere defensible," Adelaide added, the Doctor stepping back to her side.

"Where are you going?"

"We're getting Angie, finding Artie, and looking for funny insects." The Doctor took Adelaide's hand. "Stay alive." He pointed at the soldiers. "And you lot, no blowing up this planet!" With a final nod from both Time Lords, they hurried off.

|C-S|

The Time Lords were careful as they stepped back into Webley's room, honestly not that surprised that Artie was gone. "Artie?" the Doctor called, hopeful, but the boy didn't respond.

Adelaide bent down to the level of the small insect – Cybermat, now that she could see it better – that she spotted. "Those children are under our protection. We're going to find them."

The Doctor stepped up behind her. "Little metal machine, you are beautiful." He soniced it, turning it dormant before Adelaide picked it up so they could both study it. "Not even a Cybermat anymore, eh? Cybermites." They hurried to the chess room, as the Doctor's sonic found a signal leading them. "Now, there's a local transmat link open to your home. If I can just find the frequency…" He flicked a switch on his sonic, teleporting them to a technologically advanced lab. The Doctor looked honestly surprised. "Hey, that really shouldn't have worked."

"Doctor, Adelaide," Artie said, his voice toneless in a way that, somehow, reminded the Doctor of someone. "Help us." The siblings were standing against a wall, empty expressions, with a small device on their temple.

The Doctor rushed forward. "Angie? Artie?" he soniced them, but they didn't respond.

"Webley," Adelaide said, making him look up. The man, partially converted into a Cyberman, entered the room.

"We needed children, but the children had stopped coming. You brought us children. Hail to you, the Doctor and Adelaide, saviors of the Cybermen!" The Doctor stepped back, standing beside Adelaide, as Webley faced them across the table. "As the battle raged between humanity and the Cyberiad, the Cyberplanners built a Valkyrie, to save critically damaged units and bring them here, and one by one, repair them."

Adelaide nodded. "People vanished from the amusement park. They were spare parts."

"We've upgraded ourselves. The next model will be undefeatable."

"Nothing's undefeatable," the Doctor said.

"We needed children to build a new Cyberplanner. A child's brain, with its infinite potential, is perfect for our needs. But we no longer need the children. The Cybermites have been scanning your brains. They're quite remarkable."

"Also completely useless to you," the Doctor said. "Cybermen use human parts. We're not human. You can't convert non-humans."

Welbey smirked. "Well, that was true a long time ago. But we've upgraded ourselves. Current Cyberunits use almost any living components." He threw a handful of Cybermites at the Time Lords.

Specifically, he threw them at Adelaide.

They latched onto her face, forcing herself to fall to her knees in pain, shaking. The Doctor rushed to her, but he didn't get far before Adelaide stiffened. "Adelaide…" he asked quietly, terrified.

Terribly terrified, almost more terrified than anything he'd ever felt before.

And he couldn't help but remember the first moment Adelaide had first opened that pocket watch because that's what she looked like now. Stiff, hardened, readjusting to a body.

"Incorporated," Adelaide said, rotating her wrists as she considered them. "Yes. Unfamiliar pulmonary set-up. Nervous system hyper-conductive. Remarkable brain processing speed."

Adelaide twitched. "Get out," she insisted, focusing.

|C-S|

To an untrained eye, it looked like Adelaide was staring at a mirror in her mental landscape. Behind both of them was a chalkboard filled with a cloud of numbers and facts, though on one side, the side of the Cyberplanner, they took the form of equations. On the other, Adelaide's side, they were strings of chemicals and diagrams.

Different enough, but the two were remarkably similar.

Adelaide stood before the Cyberplanner, nothing physical separating them from each other. "Stop rummaging in my mind. It isn't polite."

The Cyberplanner smirked. "Just you try and stop me. Ooo, who's Clara?" she turned to the small display, almost looking like the display screen of Adelaide's old TARDIS, as an image of Clara appeared. "Why are you thinking about her so much? And so many conflicting thoughts about this Doctor?" his current face appeared. "Oh, he's a naughty thing, isn't he? And who's Caroline?" the woman's face appeared for a second before the screen flickered off.

"Enough," she snapped.

"Fascinating. A complete mental block. Highly effective."

|C-S|

The Doctor watched Adelaide as she stood, switching between the personalities. He could tell the difference; it was visible if you'd spent enough time with her. If you knew her like he did.

The Cyberplanner tightened ever so slightly, restraining herself, like Adelaide the first moment she'd opened her fob watch. It would last for a second, but he saw it.

"Relax, relax," the Cyberplanner said, flexing her hands. "If you just relax, you will find this a perfectly pleasant experience. You are being upgraded and incorporated into the Cyberiad as a Cyberplanner."

"No!" Adelaide clenched her fists.

|C-S|

Adelaide considered the Cyberplanner's mental landscape. "You're getting signals from every Cyberman everywhere. How many of you are there?"

|C-S|

Another snap, and it was the Cyberplanner again. Adelaide hadn't moved from where she'd been standing, facing the Doctor. "Oh, this is brilliant. I'm so clever already, and now I'm a million times more clever. And what a brain! Not a human brain, not even slightly human. I mean, I'm going to have to completely rework the neural interface, but the basic thought processing is easily adaptable. This is going to be the most efficient Cyberplanner!"

"Don't you dare hurt her," the Doctor tried, but the Cyberplanner didn't listen.

She made a face. "Not a great name, that, is it? I could call myself…Miss Clever!" She tilted her head. "So much raw data, so many species and races and…Time Lords…" her eyes widened. "There's information on the Time Lords in here. Oh, this is just dreamy!"

|C-S|

"I am allowing you access to my memories on Time Lord regeneration." To their side, Adelaide's five other faces flashed across the screen, particularly the moments of regeneration.

"Fantastic!" the Cyberplanner cheered, grinning.

"I am able to regenerate right now. The regeneration energy would burn out any bits of Cybertechnology in my brain. And I am perfectly willing to do it." Her last regeneration flashed up. "I'm willing to die if it comes to it."

|C-S|

The Doctor felt his hearts stop. Adelaide was willing to die…he'd known she'd wanted to in her last regeneration, after everything she'd been through, but she'd never said…no, she was just taunting the Cyberplanner, she didn't mean it, she couldn't mean it.

The fact she wasn't doing it right now had to mean that she didn't mean it.

The Cyberplanner sighed. "Stalemate, then. One of us needs to control this head. We're too well-balanced."

|C-S|

"We each control 39.881 percent of this brain. .238 of the brain is still in the balance. Whoever gets this gets the whole thing."

Adelaide nodded. She was well aware of the danger she was in at the moment, the danger the Doctor was in. "Chess?"

The Cyberplanner nodded. "The rules of chess are in my memory banks. You're proposing we play chess to end the stalemate?"

"Nobody can access that portion of the brain without winning the game." Adelaide held out her hand.

After a moment, the Cyberplanner shook.

|C-S|

"You can't win," the Cyberplanner scoffed.

"We have equal odds."

"You understand, when I do win, the Cyberiad gets your brains and memories. All of it."

Adelaide nodded. "Yes, I am well aware of the threat. This is not ideal, but it is the only option. When I win, you leave my mind, you let the children go, and nobody here dies." For a second, Adelaide met the Doctor's eyes, knowing that was what he wanted. "Nobody dies."

 **A/N: Hello Miss Clever :)**


	26. She Wants

**She Wants**

The Doctor set up the chess board for Adelaide and the Cyberplanner before stepping back, staying by her side. A few times, when Adelaide flashed back, her hand would twitch towards him.

The Cyberplanner made the first move. "There, that was easy. The game has just started." Adelaide said nothing. "I must ask, why is there no record of either of you anywhere in the databanks of the Cyberiad?" She smirked. "Oh, you're good. You've been eliminating yourself from history. You know you could be reconstructed by the hole you've left?"

"As a story."

"Some stories are true."

|C-S|

"The rules of chess allow only a finite number of moves, and I can use other Cyberunits as remote processors," the Cyberplanner scoffed. "You cannot possibly win."

Adelaide didn't look overly bothered. "Inconsequential. Are you aware that very early versions of the Cyber operating system could be seriously scrambled by exposure to things like gold or cleaning fluid? The Doctor explained it to me once; you know well I never bothered with code. And something I've just learned is that you're still running some of it."

"Really? That's your secret weapon? Cleaning fluid?"

|C-S|

"Gold, actually." The Doctor, thankfully, understood exactly what she meant and slapped the golden ticket to her cheek. Adelaide closed her eyes, twitching, but he knew it had worked. "Thank you," she breathed, opening her eyes and reaching for his hand for a moment, before turning to Webley and the children. "You three, follow us. We'll bring the chessboard."

The Doctor gathered it quickly, somehow doing it one-handed because Adelaide did not seem willing to let go of him right now.

|C-S|

The Time Lords, with Webley and the children following, hurried towards where Clara and the soldiers had set up base. The soldiers instantly raised their weapons, but the Doctor used the chessboard as a sort of shield. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot, we're nice! Please, don't shoot!" the soldiers lowered their arms as Clara hurried over. "Hey, Clara, you haven't let them blow up the planet. Good job."

"Did you get the kids? Are they alright?" Clara paused, noticing the gold stuck to Adelaide's face. "What's going on?"

"Er…a bit of a good news, bad news, good news again thing going on." The Doctor squeezed Adelaide's hand. "So, good news, Adelaide's kidnapped the Cyberplanner and right now she's sort of in control of that Cyberman."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Bad news?"

"The Cyberplanner's in my head," Adelaide said.

The Doctor nodded. "And, different bad news, the kids are, well…it's complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"Complicated as in…walking coma." The Doctor hid behind the chessboard again, the Time Lords stepping to the side to reveal the children.

Clara hurried forward, studying them, before looking back at the Time Lords. "Please tell me you can wake them up."

"Hope so."

"Other good news?"

"Well, in other good news, there are a few more repaired and reactivated Cybermen on the way…"

"And the Cyberplanner's installing a patch for the gold," Adelaide said. "Neither of which is good news."

The Doctor winced. "Okay, so, good news…Adelaide has a very good chance of winning her chess match."

Clara shook her head. "What?"

"We'll explain later. In a bit of a hurry."

Adelaide nodded. "Get me to a table and restrain me." The Doctor frowned. "Only hands free, Doctor. I won't let the Cyberplanner hurt anyone."

|C-S|

The Doctor really didn't like having to tie Adelaide up, but she kept reminding him that she didn't want the Cyberplanner to do anything, especially since she wouldn't be able to stop it with the gold again. "Everything will be fine," she told him, taking his hand for the last time before he stepped back. "I can handle this."

"I know you can," he nodded. "But I'm still worried…"

"If I need to, I will regenerate and burn the Cyberplanner from me. Everything will be fine." The Doctor squeezed her hand again before stepping back, letting Adelaide test the restraints. "Very good. Hands free, but unable to move."

Clara stepped up, looking nervous, beside the Doctor. "You're playing chess with yourself?"

"And winning." With a nod, Adelaide pulled the gold from her face, becoming the Cyberplanner instantly. Clara actually leaped at the change, spotting it too.

"Actually, she has no better than a twenty-five percent chance of winning at this stage in the game. Some very dodgy moves at the beginning." She smirked at Clara. "Hello, flesh girl. Pleasure. I'm the Cyberplanner."

Clara frowned. "Adelaide?"

"Afraid not. I'm working the mouth now." She chuckled. "Oh, you should see the state of these neurons. She's had some cowboys in here. Five complete resets. Betrayed almost every time, apparently. She's not that good at making friends. Debtors, yes, but not many friends. Oh, if she wanted, she could have half the universe bowing at her feet…"

The Doctor clenched his fists. "Stop talking and play."

The Cyberplanner fixed her attention on Clara. "And you, the impossible girl, are her current mystery. Oh, she's very interested in you. Maybe even a bit jealous?" She looked at the Doctor again. "Worried you're Aligned to someone else?"

She was lying. He knew she was lying. The Cyberplanner just wanted to rile him up, wanted to distract Adelaide. But it wouldn't work, he knew it wouldn't.

Clara, who didn't understand what Aligning was, shook her head. "Why am I impossible?"

The Cyberplanner's gaze snapped back to her. "Haven't they told you? The sly devil, that cold woman…oh, dear me. Listen, soon we'll wake. We'll strip you down for spare parts, then build a spaceship and move on."

"More Cybermen."

She nodded. "They're waking from their tomb right now. You can either die or live on as one of us."

Clara shook her head. "The Doctor and Adelaide will stop you."

"Please? She can't even access the lips and he can't bear to see her in harm's way."

She was cut off by the Doctor surging forward to kiss Adelaide quite soundly. The Time Lady was the one to pull away, gasping, but he knew it had worked.

Sudden kissing did wonders to shock someone.

"Neural surge…" Adelaide breathed, her face going slightly red despite herself. "Thank you."

"Took inspiration from Donna," he nodded.

Clara frowned. "Why am I the impossible girl?"

"We'll explain later," Adelaide told her quickly.

"Chess game…stakes?"

Adelaide took a breath. "If she wins, I give up my mind and she gets access to all my memories, along with knowledge of time travel and some very dicey secrets about some very powerful people throughout history. But if I win, she'll break her promises to get out of my head and kill us all anyway."

Clara frowned, looking between the Time Lords. The Doctor looked worried, even more so now, but Adelaide somehow still looked rather calm. "That's not reassuring."

"No, but it's the situation we're currently dealing with."

Clara looked over at the children, who were standing there motionless. "Please tell me you can fix whatever happened to the children."

The Doctor waved a hand, still focusing on Adelaide. "Children, yeah, they're fine. I mean, right now their brains are just in standby mode."

"That is not fine!"

"Right now they have a much better chance of getting out of this situation alive than you do," the Cyberplanner scoffed.

Clara tensed. "Which one of you said that?"

"Me. Cyberplanner. Miss Clever. Now, if you don't mind, I have a chess game to finish, and you have to die, pointlessly and very far from home." She waved. "Toodle-oo."

Before Clara stepped away, the Doctor held out his hand for the remote trigger. The woman paused for a second, looking at Adelaide, before pressing it into the Doctor's hand and hurrying off. The Time Lord slid it into his pocket before turning back to Adelaide, who was watching him.

|C-S|

Adelaide flinched, frowning at the Cyberplanner. "What are you doing?"

The Cyberplanner just smirked. "It's time to get up. Wakey, wakey, boys and girls. Wakey, wakey!"

|C-S|

Adelaide, pausing the game, looked up at the Doctor. "What's wrong?"

"I don't like this."

"And neither do I." She met his eyes for a second. "But it's the situation at the moment, and unless I regenerate there's nothing I can do about it."

"Why don't you? You could get rid of the threat right now."

"I'm not certain what would happen to the children if I destroyed the Cyberplanner. How connected they are. I don't want to risk them unnecessarily."

He nodded. "You're certain you can win?"

"Are you doubting me?" the small smirk made the Doctor pause. He knew Adelaide could look like that, he'd seen her look like that, but not recently, not in a long time. Not in front of him. "You're not certain if I'm me or not." He didn't nod, but he didn't contradict her. "Ask me a question. Something only I would know the answer to."

"What did you tell me the first time we met?" She frowned, but he knew Adelaide would have remembered. And he knew that Adelaide wouldn't have allowed the Cyberplanner access to any memories of Gallifrey. "Don't lie to me. Don't pretend to be her when you're not."

The Cyberplanner smirked. "Hard to tell the difference though, wasn't it? Gave you a moment of doubt."

She twitched, more than she had before. "Where am I?" But it wasn't Adelaide speaking, or the Cyberplanner. "Help me!"

It was Caroline.

It pained the Doctor, but he slapped Adelaide - as lightly as he could and still be effective - to force her back into her own head. "How…" she breathed, barely able to focus on what had just happened before her left hand leaped up, grabbing the Doctor's arm. "No!"

The other reached into his jacket, grabbing the trigger before he could stop her, before she could stop herself, and threw it against the wall. It shattered.

Everything softened, but Adelaide was shaking. "She got what she wanted. She destroyed the trigger." Her expression darkened, and the Doctor stepped back. "My move."

And then she smirked, the Cyberplanner back. "Good news, boys and girls! They're here!" They heard the sounds of battle and the Doctor ran to the window, watching it. "I've learned so much from you, Adelaide. It's been an education. But now, it's time for the endgame. They're nearly here." She focused on the chess game again. "Now, you can take my bishop and keep limping on for a little longer, or you can sacrifice your queen and get the children back. But it's mate in five moves, and I get your mind."

The smirk shifted, becoming Adelaide's, becoming pleased and subtle, something instinctive when something was going her way.

It had always annoyed people on Gallifrey, particularly when they were playing chess.

"Take my queen and return the children," she said calmly.

The Cyberplanner scoffed. "Emotions. So unbecoming on you. Can't you see what a foolish move that was? You've lost the game."

Adelaide didn't seem that bothered. "Children?"

The Doctor turned as Angie and Artie fell to the ground, hurrying over to remove the devices from their temples.

"Emotions, Adelaide, all for two human children you barely know. Seems to happen to you a lot recently; you let your people die, but you risked the universe to save Amelia Pond. Doesn't it pain you, to sacrifice something you hold so dear?"

"You know nothing of sacrifice."

Webley started walking forward. "Welcome to Webley's World of Wonders, children. Now presenting delights, delicacies, and death."

"Doctor!" Angie cried.

Porridge, who'd run into the room, grabbed Webley's leg with a pulser, deactivating him, but the blast sending him flying across the room to land under the chess table.

The Time Lord squeezed Angie's shoulders. "Angie, look after Artie, okay?"

"Your move," Adelaide told the Cyberplanner. "But, before you take it, you might be interested to know that sacrificing my queen was the best possible move I could have made. The Time Lords invented chess; it's our game. And if you don't avoid my trap, it gives me mate in three moves." She looked up at the Doctor, the man starting to smirk now too.

It wasn't an ideal plan, but Adelaide was willing to do it.

"How?" She didn't answer the Cyberplanner. "How?"

"I thought you were a chess-playing robot?"

"How!"

"I have confidence that you'll figure it out. Or perhaps you don't have the processing power…" she flinched. "Thought you'd do that."

"Three million Cyberbrains are working on one tiny chess problem. How long do you think it's going to take us to solve it?" A second, and the Cyberplanner frowned. "There's no way you can get to mate in three moves."

"Would you like to know what they are?"

"You're lying!"

"I've just been spending a few centuries with a 'sly devil'." Adelaide picked up Porridge's pulser. "Move one, turn on sonic pen." She flicked it on. "Move two, activate pulser." She soniced it. "Move three, amplify pulser. It's been fun!" she slammed it against her face, breathing hard, but the metal implants fell from her face and she fell forward. When she straightened, she was grinning. "You can be wonderful inspiration sometimes, Doctor. Now, can you untie me, please?" The Doctor ran over, hurrying to do just that, and then gave her quite a hard hug. That contact was precisely what she needed at the moment. "Thank you."

"Sorry about the kiss," he whispered.

"It was effective." She pulled back, forcing herself to separate. "We don't have much time to waste."

Clara, who'd run into the room at some point that Adelaide didn't really know, frowned at her. "What happened to the Cyberplanner?"

"Out of my head and redistributed across three million Cybermen, and preparing to wake them all up, kill us, and begin constructing a spaceship."

The Doctor nodded. "We need to destroy this planet before they can get off it." He hurried over to the bomb, Adelaide joining him. "Okay, it has a fallback voice activation."

One of the soldiers shook his head. "The Captain, but she's dead."

"I think you should ask Porridge," Angie said.

"Why?"

The girl shrugged. "Well, he is the Emperor. I bet he knows the activation codes." Everyone else but Adelaide looked between Porridge and Angie. "Oh, come on, it's obvious. He looks exactly like he does on the coin, and on the waxwork, except they made him a bit taller, but…look, am I the only one paying attention to anything around here?"

Adelaide smiled. "I like you, Angie." The girl grinned at her, pleased.

Clara shook her head. "You are full of surprises. Porridge?"

The man sighed. "She's right."

"So you can save us?"

"We all die in the end. Does it matter now?"

A soldier frowned. "What do we do?"

"I don't want to be Emperor. If I activate that bomb, it's all over."

"And if you don't," Adelaide told him, "three million Cybermen will spread across the galaxy."

The Doctor nodded. "Isn't that worth dying for?"

"But…"

"Three million Cybermen!"

Porridge clenched his jaw, stepping forward. "The bomb, the throne, it's all connected. I just have to say this is Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick, called Longstaff the forty-first. The Defender of Humanity, Imperator of known space. Activate the Desolator." The device activated. "And it's done. It'll blow in about eighty seconds. Easily long enough for the Imperial Flagship to locate me from my identification, warp jump into orbit, and transmat us to the State Room."

A second he finished speaking, they were teleported into a room Adelaide recognized, though it had been updated since the last time she'd visited.

The Doctor spun as he took it all in. "Oh, yeah, nice ship. Not blue enough."

"There's a blue police telephone box at coordinates 6-ultra-19P. Can you transmit it up here, please?"

Porridge nodded, glancing at the woman sitting at the control panel. "Right. Did you get that?" The panel beeped once the task had been completed. "And that's that. Seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine…" the planet below exploded, rocking the Imperial ship. "Farewell, Cyberiad. You know," Porridge sighed, "it was good to get away. Good to be a person and not to be lonely, or Emperor of a thousand galaxies with everyone waiting for me to tell them what to do."

"Can't you run away again?" Artie asked.

"They'll be keeping a close eye on me this time. That's what happens when you're Emperor. Loneliest job in the universe."

Clara shrugged. "You don't have to be lonely."

"I don't…" Porridge turned, dropping to one knee before Clara. "Clara, will you marry me?"

The woman's eyes widened. "What?"

"He said…" Artie whispered.

"She heard what he said," Angie told him.

"You're smart and you're beautiful, and I've never met anyone like you before. And being Emperor won't be as hard if you're by my side. And you'd rule a thousand galaxies…"

The Doctor, who had yet to let go of Adelaide, frowned. "This sounds like an actual marriage proposal. Tricky." He leaned forward. "Now, if you want my advice…"

Clara held a hand up behind her, not looking. "You, not one word." Adelaide pulled the Doctor back beside her. "This is between me and the Emperor. Porridge, I don't want to rule a thousand galaxies."

Porridge sighed, nodding. "Yeah. Silly of me."

"I'm really sorry."

Angie crossed her arms. "But that's stupid. You could be queen of the universe. How can you say no to that? When someone asks you if you want to be queen of the universe, you say 'yes'! You watch. One day, I'll be queen of the universe."

Porridge laughed. "Of course, I could have you all executed, which is what a proper Emperor would do. Especially you, Adelaide."

The Doctor's eyes widened, looking at Adelaide, but the Time Lady just shrugged. "You're not actually going to do that, though, are you…" the Doctor said. Porridge smiled. "Oh, you're…hey!"

"Go on, get out of here, all of you," Porridge waved a hand, "before I change my mind."

Adelaide pulled the Doctor back to the TARDIS, waving at Porridge as they left.

|C-S|

Artie shook the Doctor's hand quite vigorously, having just stopped doing the same to Adelaide. "Thank you for having me. It was very interesting."

The Doctor grinned. "Our pleasure. Thank you for coming. Now," he pointed at Angie, "I've got something for you."

"It's not from him, it's from the TARDIS," Adelaide corrected as the Doctor plucked a new phone from somewhere in the console.

Angie grinned. "Thanks."

The Doctor stopped beside Adelaide, slinging an arm over her shoulder. "You're welcome."

"Sorry I said this box was stupid."

"We appreciate the apology," Adelaide nodded. "Goodbye."

"Bye! Thanks, Clara," Angie nodded at Clara as she left the TARDIS.

"Thanks, Clara's friends!" Artie called, following his sister.

Clara laughed. "Thank you, Doctor, Adelaide."

"For what?"

"Kid's day out, getting us off the planet alive, whatever you were doing with the Cybermen. Goodnight." She gave them a small salute and left the TARDIS. "See you next Wednesday!"

"Well," the Doctor shrugged, "a Wednesday, definitely. Next Wednesday, last Wednesday. One of the Wednesdays."

Once Clara closed the door, Adelaide leaned back against the console, taking a breath. "I've had quite enough of being trapped in my head, fighting for control," she sighed.

The Doctor moved to lean against the console beside her, taking her hand again. "I won't let it happen to you anymore."

She chuckled. "That's an impossible promise."

"I don't care. I'll make it true." He squeezed their hands. "I promise."

Adelaide said nothing more for a moment, just rested her head against the Doctor's shoulder. It was nice to just stand there, as much as Adelaide could sometimes abhor physical contact. But the Doctor was different. The Doctor was nice.

The Doctor had changed her.

Before the war, Adelaide wouldn't have thought to do what she did to get rid of the Cyberplanner. Really, she didn't know what she would have thought of. But she hadn't been lying when she'd said that the Doctor had inspired her. His way of thinking, of improvising and taking chances and sometimes not thinking out the outcomes, had filtered into her.

When she'd regenerated into this body, she'd tried to return to the logical way of thinking she'd once known. She'd tried to become the person she'd thought she'd be most comfortable in.

But she'd changed. The moment the war had happened, the moment she'd been forced to make the choice between her people and the rest of the universe, the moment she'd been offered the chance to really run, she'd changed.

And as much as she might have wanted to, Adelaide couldn't go back.

She couldn't become the woman who'd looked out at her from the Cyberplanner's eyes because Adelaide knew that, once upon a time, that version of her would have been the optimal. Emotionless, calculating, logical. It had always been what she'd wanted to become, what she'd started out as in her first regeneration. It still was, at the core of her identity.

But every regeneration since she'd lost some of that. Every interaction she'd had with the rest of the universe had shifted something inside of her. She'd still been able to put on a front, still been able to think like that, to weigh everything properly, but it grew more difficult as time went on.

The version of Adelaide the Time Lords had wanted had been that logical one. And she'd refused them. She'd run from that.

Then she'd met the Doctor and he'd ensured she'd stayed away.

She could try to regenerate again, try to reset herself, but it wouldn't work, not anymore. Not like she wanted it to.

But just because Adelaide could admit it, just because she could acknowledge it, didn't mean she liked it. Didn't mean that her pace didn't quicken, her jaw didn't tighten, at the thought that she couldn't maintain the walls between her emotions and her decisions anymore.

"Is something wrong?" the Doctor asked her quietly, frowning. He'd watched the shift in her expression, but he wasn't privy to the thoughts in her head.

"I'm not her anymore…" she breathed.

The Doctor didn't know exactly what she meant, but he had enough tact to know not to say that to her at the moment.

 **A/N: A very important episode for Adelaide and her identity.**


	27. Star-Drenched

**Star-drenched**

Vastra stood before the prison cell, staring at the madman inside. He was whimpering, whispering something. "Do you hear the Whisper Men? The Whisper Men are near. If you hear the Whisper Men, then turn away your ear. Do not hear the Whisper Men, whatever else you do. For once you've heard the Whisper Men, they'll stop and look at you." He turned his gaze upon her. "One word from you could save me from the rope."

"Then you may rely on my silence," Vastra hissed.

"I have information. Valuable information."

She scoffed. "Are you bargaining for your life? You have the blood of fourteen women on your hands. There are no words you can speak that will save your neck."

The man leaped to the bars, grabbing them as she turned to leave. "The Doctor and Adelaide!" she paused. "Yes, I know all about them, your dangerous friends. The Predator and the Protector."

Vastra tensed. "How?"

"In the babble of the world, there are whispers, if you know how to listen. Whispers and stories of star-drenched figures." He grinned, showing his lack of quite a few teeth. "The Doctor has a secret, you know."

"He has many," Vastra admitted. "As does she."

"He has one he will take to the grave, one she does not know, one she can't know. And it is discovered." He grinned. "Well?"

|C-S|

The madman had convinced Vastra enough to make her call a conference call between a few of the Time Lords' friends. She and Jenny were the first to arrive since they'd been the ones to arrange everything.

Jenny looked around them, smiling. "Oh, I like the new desktop."

Vastra shrugged. "I was getting a little bored of the Taj Mahal." She looked down at the table, making tea appear. "The tea should be superb. It's drawn from one of my favorite memories." Strax appeared in his own seat as she began to pour tea. "Strax, good of you to join us.'

"It had better be important," he grumbled. "I was in the middle of destroying some very pleasant primitives."

"I apologize for the interruption, but there is urgent news concerning the Doctor and Adelaide."

Strax huffed, eyeing the remaining seats. "Who else is coming?"

"The women." Clara dropped into her seat, looking rather terrified. "So glad you could make it."

"Where am I?"

"Exactly where you were," Jenny told her, "but sleeping."

"Time travel has always been possible in dreams. We are awaiting only one more participant."

Strax made a face. "Oh, no, not the one with the gigantic head?"

"It's hair, Strax," Jenny snapped.

That just made it worse. "Hair?"

There was a puff of smoke and River Song appeared in her own seat. "Madame Vastra," she said, smiling.

"Professor." Vastra nodded. "Help yourself to some tea."

"Why, thank you." She took a cup, turning it into a champagne flute on contact.

Jenny frowned. "How did you do that?"

River winked. "Disgracefully." Her gaze landed on Clara.

"Ah," Vastra said. "Perhaps you two haven't met. This is the Doctor and Adelaide's companion. That is, their current traveling assistant."

Clara frowned. "Assistant?" She did suppose that word came from Adelaide's perspective, but she'd never heard the woman use it herself. Granted, she didn't remember ever hearing Adelaide call her anything.

"Have you gone a darker green?" Strax asked Vastra.

"Clara Oswald," she coughed.

River smiled. "Professor River Song. The Time Lords might have mentioned me?"

Clara nodded, a bit too quickly to be telling the truth. "Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, of course, they have. Professor Song. Sorry, it's just I never realized you were a woman." The Time Lords had mentioned River a few times in passing, enough that Clara could grasp that she'd done something to Adelaide. Not something either of them blamed her for. In fact, Adelaide always seemed a bit thankful whenever River was brought up, which tended to be when someone they interacted with mentioned her, as the woman appeared to have had a rather impressive career of adventures of her own.

River blinked at that, but Strax shrugged, not really seeing the big deal. "Well, neither did I."

Vastra coughed. "Perhaps we should get down to the business at hand."

"That might be good, dear, yes."

Vastra touched the air at the center of the table, creating a projection of the man from the prison. "Clarence DeMarco. Murderer, under sentence of death. He offered us this in exchange for his life." She waved her hand again, changing the projection.

"Space-time coordinates," River nodded.

"This, Mr. DeMarco claims, is the location of the Doctor's greatest secret."

Clara frowned. "Which is?"

"We don't know," Jenny snapped, reminding Clara a bit of when Adelaide was reminding her to 'notice everything, use your eyes'. "It's a secret."

"The Doctor does not discuss his secrets with anyone, my dear. Not even Adelaide knows them all, but that goes both ways. If you're still entertaining the idea that you are an exception to this rule, ask yourself one question: what is his name? Or Adelaide's."

Jenny, which no one noticed, flinched.

When Clara didn't say anything, River smirked. "Well, I know it. The Doctor's, anyway."

"What, you know his name? He told you?"

She shrugged. "I made him."

"How?"

"Carefully. Adelaide was much harder to convince; never succeeded, not really. Did get a nickname, though." She leaned back. "What else did this DeMarco tell you?" she asked Vastra. "He didn't just buy his life with some coordinates. How did he prove their value?"

"One word, only."

"What word?"

"A word I've heard in connection with the Doctor before. Trenzalore."

River stiffened, her face darkening. "How exactly did he describe what he was giving you?"

Vastra waved her hand again, bringing up the memory of DeMarco. "The Doctor has a secret, you know. He has one he will take to the grave, one she does not know, one she can't know. And it is discovered."

River shook her head, staring at the image. "You misunderstood."

"Ma'am," Jenny cut in, gasping, "I'm sorry. I just realized I forgot to lock the doors."

"It doesn't matter, Jenny. What misunderstanding? Tell me."

"No, ma'am, please," Jenny shook her head. "I should've locked up before we went into the trance."

"Jenny, it doesn't matter!" she turned, but her voice died when she saw Jenny's expression.

"Someone's broken in. Someone's with us. I can hear them."

"Jenny, are you alright?"

Jenny stared at a point over Vastra's shoulder. "Sorry, ma'am. So sorry, so sorry, so sorry. I think I've been murdered…" she started to fade away.

"Jenny!"

"What's happened to her?" Clara asked, standing.

"Jenny," River tried, "Can you hear me?"

"Speak to us, boy!"

"Jenny!"

But Jenny vanished. "You are under attack," River said. "You must wake up now. Just wake up! Do it!" she slapped Vastra as hard as she could, forcing the woman awake. "You too, Strax. Wake up now!" she threw her champagne at Strax's face, waking him too.

Whisper Men invaded the dreamscape, approaching them, surrounding them. "Tell the Doctor. Tell Adelaide. Tell the Time Lords…"

"Tell them what?"

The projection flickered, changing to Dr. Simeon. "Their friends are lost forever more, unless they go to Trenzalore."

"No!" River cried. "You can't say that. He can't go there! You know he can't!"

Clara frowned, hearing someone like the Doctor speaking around her, faintly. "Angie? Artie?"

"The Doctor can never go to Trenzalore," River insisted, but then the woman faded away.

"Am I getting warm?"

|C-S|

Clara sat up suddenly, gasping. It took her a moment before her eyes adjusted to her surroundings. Adelaide was sitting on the stairs below her, leaning back against the wall with a book that Clara vaguely recognized in hand. The Time Lady lowered it when she saw that Clara was awake. "How are you feeling?"

"Strange." She rubbed her forehead, finally recognizing that Adelaide had placed a pillow beneath her head. "Where's the Doctor?"

"Playing Blind Man's Bluff." Adelaide sighed. "Without any children."

"Angie? Artie?" the Doctor called, walking past the bottom of the stairs with a blindfold on. "Am I getting warm? Am I getting warm?"

"Don't worry. Mr. Maitland went next door, and the children wanted to go to the cinema. I gave them permission because they seemed suitably responsible, but the Doctor was firmer."

"At which point they suggested Blind Man's Bluff?"

"Precisely." Adelaide stood, holding out a hand to help Clara. "I've been trying to convince the Doctor of the truth for the past few minutes but he insists they're just hiding." The two women hurried down the stairs, with Adelaide catching the Doctor's shoulders before he went too much further. "Clara's awake."

He pulled off the blindfold, grinning. "Brilliant!" He looked even more pleased when he realized how close Adelaide was standing, a slight bit of blush on his cheeks. That made Clara smile, but it was small enough and strained enough that the Time Lords, even the Doctor, noticed. "What's wrong?"

|C-S|

Clara made tea for them all while the Time Lords sat in the main room, frowning. "So who was she exactly, the lady with the funny name and the space hair?" She glanced at the pair of them, walking over.

"An old friend," the Doctor offered.

That made Clara pause. She knew Adelaide never seemed that upset whenever she brought up River, but the way the Doctor said it… "Like an ex?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "No! Nothing like an ex. The opposite of an ex."

"She shot me," Adelaide told Clara. "I wanted her to, don't worry. He's still upset." The Doctor took her hand. "River asked Vastra for the exact words. What were they?"

"The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave, one she does not know, one she can't know. And it is discover…" Clara's voice fell, frowning at the Doctor's face. It looked like there were actually tears in the man's eyes. "Doctor?"

He wiped his face. "Sorry," his voice broke slightly. "And it was Trenzalore? Definitely Trenzalore?"

"Yeah."

"Oh dear. Sorry." He stood and, without another word, ran from the house.

Adelaide didn't even stop to apologize or explain.

|C-S|

Clara found the Time Lords sitting beneath the console, sitting side by side, hands linked. "Well?"

Adelaide looked up at her. "Trenzalore. We've heard it spoken many times, and we've always suspected what it was."

"Never wanted to find out myself," the Doctor mumbled. "River would know, though, River always knew."

Adelaide stepped forward, holding out a hand. "May I have your hand?" Clara nodded, walking forward. "The coordinates you saw should still be in your memory." The Doctor, who'd moved as well, pulled a wire from the console above them. "We're linking you into the TARDIS telepathic circuit." She stabbed it into Clara's hand without another word, making the woman cry out from the pain.

"Okay, what is Trenzalore? Is that your big secret?"

"No," the Doctor said.

"Okay, what then?"

"When you are a time traveler, there is one place you must never go. One place in all of space and time you must never, ever find yourself."

Clara shook her head. "Where?"

"Notice everything," Adelaide said. "Listen. 'The Doctor has a secret he will take to the grave, one she does not know, one she can't know. It is discovered.' The last bit wasn't talking about his secret. It was talking about his grave."

The Doctor nodded as Clara gasped. "Trenzalore is where I'm buried."

"How can you have a grave?"

"Because we all do, somewhere out there in the future, waiting for us." The group made their way up to the main part of the console. "The trouble with time travel, you can actually end up visiting."

"But you're not going to," Clara insisted. "You just said it's the one place you must never go."

"I have to save Vastra and Strax. Jenny too, if it's still possible." The Doctor swallowed. "They…they cared for me during the dark times. Never questioned me, never judged me, they were just kind. I owe them. I have a duty." He glanced at Clara. "No point in telling you this is too dangerous."

Clara nodded. "None at all. How can we save them?"

"Apparently," Adelaide said, walking to the other side of the console, "by breaking into his tomb."

The Time Lords set the TARDIS into motion, which instantly started to fight against them. It shook even more than normal, sending Clara back against the railing. "What's that?"

"She's just figured out where we're going!" the Doctor called. "She's against it. I'm about to cross my own timeline in the biggest way possible, the TARDIS doesn't like it. She's fighting it. Hang on! Hang on!"

The console sparked, sending the Time Lords flying back. The TARDIS powered itself down and settled. "Now what?"

"She doesn't want to land." The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. "She's shutting down."

"So we're not there?"

"We're close," Adelaide said, going over to the door and opening it.

The Doctor came to look over her shoulder, wincing. "Okay, so that's where I end up." Clara came to the other side. "Always thought maybe I'd retire. Take up watercolors or bee-keeping, or something. Apparently not."

"You can't sit still long enough to retire," Adelaide told the Doctor, and he cracked a small smile.

"So, how do we get down there? Jump?"

"Don't be silly. We fall." The Time Lords stepped back, leaving Clara to close the doors. "She's turned off practically everything except the anti-gravs." He pulled out his sonic, pointing it at the console. "Guess what I'm turning off." He flicked the sonic and they plummeted to the floor as the TARDIS fell.

|C-S|

They landed with so much force that one of the TARDIS windows cracked, making the Doctor wince when he saw it. "Oops." He took a breath, taking Adelaide's hand as she stepped up, before opening the door. They'd landed in a graveyard, a storm above them.

"You okay?" Clara asked him. It was clear enough from what they'd said that this was only the Doctor's grave. For whatever reason, Adelaide wasn't going to die here. "You're visiting your own grave. Anyone would be scared."

"It's more than that," he whispered. "I'm a time traveler. I've probably time-traveled more than anyone else, and that whole history is peppered with fixed events."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Meaning?"

"Meaning his grave is most likely the most dangerous place in the universe."

The Doctor nodded. "Shall we?" he adjusted to linking Adelaide's arm through his as they started walking through the graveyard.

Clara studied the stones as they passed them. "Gravestones are a bit basic?"

"It's a battlefield graveyard," the Doctor said. "My final battle."

"Why are some of them bigger?"

"They're soldiers. The bigger the gravestone, the higher the rank…" his voice fell as they all saw the impressively large TARDIS in the distance.

"Apparently I find my TARDIS…" Adelaide breathed.

Clara frowned. "Is that the TARDIS?"

"When a TARDIS is dying, sometimes the dimension dams start breaking down," the Doctor explained. "They used to call it a size leak. All the bigger on the inside starts leaking to the outside. It grows. My TARDIS from the future. What else would they bury me in?" He and Adelaide continued moving, not noticing Clara had stopped until they were a few steps ahead. "Well, come on, then." Clara didn't move, and the Doctor separated from Adelaide to go back to her. "Who are you talking to? We need to get…" he turned, seeing something in the corner of his eye, and stopped. "River."

Adelaide hurried over at that. They'd stopped in front of a gravestone that said River Song.

"That can't be right," Clara mumbled.

"No, it can't," the Doctor agreed.

"She's not dead."

Adelaide shook her head. "She's been dead for a very long time."

Clara frowned. "But I met her."

"Long story." The Doctor waved a hand. "But her grave can't be here."

Clara turned, hearing whispers around her. "Doctor!"

The Time Lords spun, pulling out their sonics as the Whisper Men approached. "This man must fall as all men must. The fate of all is always dust."

"What do you think that gravestone really is?" Clara asked quickly.

"The gravestone?"

"Maybe it's a false grave."

The Doctor waved a hand. "Yeah, maybe."

Adelaide eyed Clara for a second before turning to the grave, pulling out her sonic. "Secret entrance…" she said as the gravestone moved, a hole opening in the ground a second later.

The Whisper Men looked down on them as the trio crashed onto the floor below. "The man who lies will lie no more when this man lies at Trenzalore."

 **A/N: Our Time Lords have arrived at Trenzalore! Whatever will happen when they find a certain time stream...**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _TheGirlWhoWept: Is it too cruel to say I'm pleased at that response ;)_


	28. Time-Shattered

**Time-shattered**

The Doctor and Adelaide used their sonics as torches while they navigated through the dark tunnels. The two were holding hands, something Clara wasn't overly bothered about. She just wished she had a light of her own.

"Where are we?" she asked, wrapping her arms around herself.

"Catacombs," Adelaide told her. "Use your eyes."

Clara shivered. "I hate catacombs. So…how come I met River if she's dead?"

"Oh well, you know how it is when you lose someone close to you," the Doctor shrugged. "I sort of made a back-up." They didn't get that much further before the whispers started again, this time behind them. "Clara, come on!" the Doctor shouted, using the sonic holding hand to grab Clara's hand and pull her along. "Run! Run!"

|C-S|

"It was a minor skirmish," Simeon said, standing before the trio of the Time Lords' friends outside the doors of the Doctor's tomb, "by the Doctor's blood-soaked standards. Not exactly the Time War, but enough to finish him. In the end, it was too much for the old man. Not even Adelaide could save him, star-cursed woman that she is."

Jenny frowned. "Star-cursed? Blood-soaked?"

"The Doctor has been many things," Vastra decided to focus on that comment, "but never blood-soaked."

"Tell that to the leader of the Sycorax, or Solomon the trader, or the Cybermen, or the Daleks. The Doctor lives his life in darker hues, day upon day, and he will have other names before the end. The Storm, the Beast, the Valeyard. And she can only do so much to stop him, her the Protector, the Scientist, the Betrayer…"

"Even if any of this were true," Vastra scoffed, "which I take the liberty of doubting, how did you come by this information?"

"I am information."

"You were a mind without a body last time we met," Jenny reminded him.

"And you were supposed to stay that way."

Simeon nodded. "Alas, I did." He removed his face, revealing that he was an empty shell, and crumbled to the ground. Another Whisper Man stepped forward, his face already becoming Simeon's. "As you can see…"

|C-S|

The trio ran through a steel door. "Come on, quickly, we're in!"

"Doctor!" Clara shouted, one of the Whisper Men managing to grab her. "Adelaide!"

Adelaide grabbed her, pulling her from the Whisper Man's grip before the Doctor slammed the door, trapping the hand for a moment before it pulled back, letting him close it completely. The Doctor let out a breath. "Yowzah."

They hurried up the nearby stairs, quickly finding that it was much longer than it normally was due to the expanded TARDIS. "Still a bit of a climb," the Doctor said, looking up as they reached a landing. "I think I remember the way."

Adelaide looked back, catching Clara's arm when the human stumbled. "The dimensioning forces this deep in the TARDIS can make you giddy."

Clara nodded. "I know…I know…how do I know? How do I know that?"

The Doctor rubbed her arm. "Clara, it's okay. You're fine."

"Have we…have we done this before?" The Time Lords said nothing, but Clara's eyes widened. "We have! We have done this before. Climbing through a wrecked TARDIS. You said things, things I'm not supposed to remember."

"We can't do this now. The TARDIS is a ruin. The telepathic circuits are awakening memories you shouldn't even have." Clara twitched, shaking her head as tears appeared in her eyes. "Clara…Clara…Clara?"

Clara stumbled back from both of them, shaking. "What do you mean, you keep meeting me? You said I died. How could I die?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "That is not a conversation you should even remember."

"What do you mean I died?"

"The girl who died they tried to save," the Whisper Men said, approaching them again. "She'll die again inside his grave."

"Run!" the Doctor grabbed Clara's hand, pulling her up the stairs. "Run!"

|C-S|

Simeon stood facing the doors of the TARDIS, glaring at them. "The doors require a key. The key is a word. And the word is the Doctor's."

"Here I am," the Doctor said, the trio stepping up. "Late to my own funeral, how rude of me."

Adelaide looked to the side, seeing Jenny. "Good to see you, Jenny."

"Open the door, Doctor," Simeon ordered. "Speak, and open your tomb."

"No."

"Because you know what's in there?"

The Doctor shook his head. "I will not open those doors."

"The key is a word lost to time. A secret hidden in the deepest shadow and known to you alone. The answer to a question."

"I will not open my tomb."

"Doctor, what is your name?" Simeon moved to grab the man's face, but the Time Lord stepped back before he could. "The Doctor's friends, stop their hearts."

The Whisper Men advanced on the group. "Madame, boys, combat formation!" Strax ordered. "They are unarmed."

"So are we!" Jenny reminded him.

"Do not divulge our military secrets!"

"Stop this," the Doctor tried. "Leave them alone!"

"Your name, Doctor. Answer me!"

"Doctor?" Clara called, scared.

Strax swung a stick at a nearby Whisper Man, cutting through him. "Do you want me to do that again?" but the hole just reformed.

"Doctor who?" Simeon asked and Adelaide let out a breath, making the Doctor spin. The man had his hand inside Adelaide's chest, grabbing one of her hearts. "Doctor who?"

"Please, stop it!"

"Doctor who?" Simeon was unbothered.

"Leave her alone!"

Another Whisper Man attacked Clara, the human just managing to duck before he grabbed her heart. "Doctor!"

"Doctor who?"

"Please!" he begged…and the doors opened.

Simeon released Adelaide instantly, making her stumble into the Doctor's arms. Strax groaned. "Why did you open the door, sir? I had them on the run."

The Doctor and Adelaide stepped apart. "I didn't do it," the Doctor shook his head, linking his arm through Adelaide's in his refusal to let any harm come to her again. "I didn't say my name." They looked around. "Is everyone alright? Is everyone okay? Clara? Clara? Clara, are we okay?"

"I'm fine," Clara nodded.

"Now then, Dr. Simeon," the two turned to face the man, "or Mr. G Intelligence, whatever we call you, do you know what's in there?"

Simeon nodded. "For me, peace at last. For you, pain everlasting. Won't you invite us in?"

The Time Lords stepped forward, opening the doors together to allow everyone entry. The console room inside was dark, covered in plants, and practically destroyed, with the cloister bells somewhere in the background. The time rotor and console had been replaced by a large column of bright white energy tendrils, twirling around themselves. Spread throughout it were tendrils and points of dark green, a few breaking the surface. Those points glowed a bit brighter, if that was possible, and almost seemed to be vibrating.

The Time Lords knew exactly what they were, what they meant.

"What's that?" Clara asked quietly.

"What were you expecting, a body? Bodies are boring. I've had loads of them. Nah, that's not what my tomb is for."

Vastra frowned, studying it. "But what is the light?"

Jenny smiled. "It's beautiful."

"Should I destroy it?" Strax asked.

"Shut up, Strax," Vastra snapped.

"Doctor, Adelaide, explain," Clara said. "What is that?"

"The tracks of my tears."

Simeon scoffed. "Less poetry, Doctor. Just tell them."

"Time travel is damage. It's like a tear in the fabric of reality. That is the scar tissue of my journey through the universe. My path through time and space from Gallifrey to Trenzalore."

"And what are the green bits?"

"Fixed events," Adelaide explained, tracking some as they twisted through the white. "The Doctor and my timelines are unnaturally peppered with them." She didn't bother giving the word; Aligning wasn't something humans could understand. "They're temperamental." A few sparked.

The Doctor held up his sonic, filling the room with echoes of previous bodies, Adelaide only recognizing his first, tenth, and eleventh. He started to sag against Adelaide, supporting himself via their linked arms. "My own personal time tunnel," he said, his voice even weaker. "All the days…even the ones that I…even the ones that I haven't lived yet."

He collapsed, Adelaide twisting so as to not fall with him but stay knelt beside him.

Clara gasped. "Doctor!"

"No, no. This is why I shouldn't be here. The paradoxes…it's very bad." He gripped her hand tightly, like he was clinging to that. Simeon stepped closer to the time tunnel, staring up at it. "No!" the Doctor cried. "No, no! What are you doing? Somebody stop him!"

But before anyone could move, Whisper Men stepped up, grabbing the trio. Adelaide couldn't leave the Doctor either; it may have been his time tunnel, but their linked fixed events would affect her too, the closer she got.

And the Doctor did not seem willing to let her go at that moment.

"The Doctor's life is an open wound," Simeon said. "And an open wound can be entered."

"No, it would destroy you!" the Doctor tried.

"Not at all." Simeon smiled. "It will kill me. It will destroy you. I can rewrite your every living moment. I can turn every one of your victories into defeats. Poison every friendship. Shatter your Alignment. Deliver pain to your every breath."

The Doctor shook his head. "It will burn you up. Once you go through, you can't come back. You will be scattered along my timeline like confetti."

"It matters not, Doctor. You thwarted me at every turn. Now you will give me peace, as I take my revenge on every second of your life!" He nodded. "Goodbye. Goodbye, Doctor." Without another word Simeon stepped into the beam, falling into the Doctor's time tunnel with a scream.

All the Whisper Men vanished, but the Doctor's back arched in pain, his entire body convulsing. Adelaide was forced to move back from him, but she didn't know what she could do. She didn't know what she could possibly do in order to save him, to help him.

This was Midnight, but this time she wasn't trapped in a fob watch.

And that made it worse. So, so much worse.

"What's wrong with him?" Clara asked, panicking. "What's happening?"

Vastra scanned the time tunnel. "He's being rewritten," she breathed. "Simeon is attacking his entire timeline. He's dying all at once. And...Adelaide's timeline is altering."

And then Adelaide closed her eyes, bending over with her hands gripping her head, as the pain hit her too.

Simeon had found their fixed points. He'd hit those moments that the universe had always been forcing them towards, the moments that had to happen.

And he destroyed them.

He couldn't alter her timeline, but he didn't have to.

Destroy the Doctor's and even hers before the war would crumble. They'd been the few Time Lords wandering the universe, exploring and learning, barely missing each other. They'd affected each other without knowing. Their lives had been interlocked before they'd even realized and Simeon was stopping both of them.

He was destroying the Doctor, but he was shattering Adelaide.

Her timeline was changing and that hurt.

"Oh, dear Goddess…" Vastra breathed.

"What's wrong?"

"A universe without the Doctor…there will be consequences." Vastra stepped back, moving to go outside. "Jenny, with me."

Adelaide took a deep breath, forcing herself to look at Clara. "You're the only one who can…" she mumbled.

Of course. She should have seen it, she should have known.

"My life…" the Doctor breathed, finally slightly conscious through the pain, "my whole life is burning."

Clara bent before Adelaide, lowering herself to the Time Lady's eye level. "The Dalek Asylum. You said it was me that saved you. And Victorian London…"

Adelaide nodded. "You have to go in there." She fell forward again, Clara catching her shoulders to keep her from falling too far as another point shifted, another facet of her history altered itself.

"Please…" the Doctor held out a hand towards Clara. "Please, no."

"But this is what I've already done." Clara nodded, realizing it too. "You've already seen me do it. I'm the Impossible Girl, and this is why." The human stood, looking to something at the side of the room. "If I step in there, what happens?" She was quiet. "But the echoes could save them, right?" Another pause. "But they'll be real enough to save them. It's like my mum said. The soufflé isn't the soufflé, the soufflé is the recipe." She looked back at the Time Lords. They'd grabbed hands at some point. "It's the only way to save them, isn't it?"

Vastra ran back into the room. "The stars are going out. And Jenny and Strax are dead. There must be something we can do."

Clara nodded, turning to the time tunnel. "Well, how about that? I'm soufflé girl after all." She took a breath. "If this works, get out of here as fast as you can. And spare me a thought now and then."

The Doctor reached for Clara, trying to stop her, knowing he couldn't. "No, please."

"In fact, you know what?" she laughed to herself, tears in her eyes now. "Run. Run, you foolish boy, you clever girl. And remember." She stepped into the time tunnel and, with a flash of all-encompassing light, the pressure lifted from Adelaide's mind.

The Time Lady fell against the Doctor's chest, breathing hard, and the man wrapped his arms around her.

They were together, interlocked, as the stars were restored and everything was realigned.

But the human was gone.

|C-S|

When the light finally faded, the Time Lords were standing, hands held, with Jenny, Strax, and Vastra across from them in the destroyed console room. The time tunnel, which had burned red at some point with Simeon inside it, the fixed points looking like bits of gangrene, had become the original brilliant white braided with dark green.

But there was no Clara.

"It was an unprovoked and violent attack," Strax was saying to Vastra, huffing, "but that's no excuse."

"We're all restored," Vastra waved a hand. "That's all that matters now."

"We're not all restored," the Doctor said quietly.

"You can't go in there!" someone shouted from behind them, but the Time Lords didn't turn. "It's your own time scream, for God's sake."

The Doctor turned to Adelaide, taking her hands. "I have to get her back."

"And I'll be here." Because they would need one of them to stay here, one of them to try again if the Doctor didn't succeed, if he didn't come back.

Because Adelaide had been lying to herself. She'd said that if the Doctor died she'd continue on with her life before the war. She'd said she wouldn't try to save him, to save anyone. But she'd been wrong. She knew now, in this moment, that she'd been wrong. Because she was different now, and the Adelaide she was now wouldn't just sit by and watch the Doctor die.

Adelaide would run, but not away.

At least not from this.

"Doctor, not like this!"

Jenny shook her head. "But how?"

"Is she still alive?" Vastra asked. "It killed Dr. Simeon."

"Clara's got an advantage over the Great Intelligence," the Doctor smiled.

"Which is?"

"Me." The Doctor squeezed her hand, Adelaide gently touching his cheek.

"Doctor, please listen to me! Adelaide, notice me! You have to stop him!"

Adelaide looked towards Vastra. "If he doesn't come back, which is possible, I'll have to go in to save him. And then there is still the chance that I won't come back."

"Adelaide!"

"Go to the TARDIS," the Doctor nodded. "The fast return protocols should be on. She'll take you home, then shut herself down."

"There has to be another way. Use the TARDIS, use something. Save her, yes, but for God's sake be sensible!" The Doctor's free hand shot up, grabbing River's wrist before it could hit them. They both stared directly at her. "How are you even doing that? I'm not really here."

"You are always here to me," the Doctor whispered, knowing it wasn't true for Adelaide. "And I always listen, and I can always see you."

"Then why didn't you speak to me?"

"Because I thought it would hurt too much."

River shook her head. "I believe I could have coped."

"No," he corrected, "I thought it would hurt me. And I was right." He drew River into a hug, Adelaide rubbing the woman's back. After a second, the Doctor pulled away, laughing. "Since nobody else in this room can see you, God knows how that looked." They stepped back. "There is a time to live and a time to sleep. You are an echo, River. Like Clara. Like all of us, in the end." He sighed. "My fault, I know, but you should've faded by now."

"It's hard to leave when you haven't said goodbye." River was crying now.

"Then tell me, because I don't know." The Doctor looked at Adelaide, knowing she knew it better than most others. "How do I say it?"

"Like you're going to come back."

The Doctor smiled, stepping back from both of them, finally releasing Adelaide's hand. "See you around, Professor River Song."

"Till next time, Doctor."

"Don't wait up."

River held up a hand before the Doctor turned to Adelaide. "Oh, there's one more thing."

He sighed. "Isn't there always?"

"I was mentally linked with Clara. If she's really dead, then how can I still be here?"

"Okay, how?"

River smirked. "Spoilers. Goodbye, sweeties." And then she faded away.

The Time Lords stared at where she'd been standing before looking at each other again. "I won't keep you waiting," he told her.

"You'd better not."

The Doctor smiled and stepped back into his time tunnel, encompassing the room in a bright light again.

But that time, there was no Doctor for Adelaide to cling to, to interlock with.

She was just alone.

 **A/N: Adelaide certainly had some interesting names there...**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _gossamermouse101: Very impressive! I'm glad you enjoyed it that much!_


	29. Me

**Me**

There was a story during the Last Great Time War of a Time Lady with the ability to change the tide of the war. No one knew her name or any of her faces, but they all knew of her.

Particularly when the Time Lords started losing.

Because she was blamed, at least by some of them. Not only had she been gallivanting across the universe, interfering in ways Time Lords were not meant to, but she'd refused to help rescue her own people. She'd turned her back on them.

They cursed her. Some even called her the Betrayer when they'd want to give her a name. Because she had. She'd betrayed them. She'd known the fate of Gallifrey if she ran, and she did anyway.

Almost no one believed she actually existed, of course. It was foolish to think that a single Time Lady had that much power. If she was real, the most she could have done was help the Time Lords win a few battles, sure, but not the entire war.

She was just someone to blame as Gallifrey fell.

But she was real.

She didn't have as much power as the story claimed she did; sure, a few planets were indebted to her, but not much could help against the Daleks.

But she'd always known that she could have done something, she may have been able to do something, if she hadn't run away.

|C-S|

An older woman, staring across the surface of the planet, watched as a ship fell from the sky. She didn't flinch when it crashed with a sound that shook the mountains around. With a small smile, she glanced at the younger women behind her, before looking back at the wreckage.

"And here he is at last, the man to end it all. My sisters, the Doctor has returned to Karn. We have always known in our bones that one day he would return here. Such a pity he's dead." The woman sighed.

|C-S|

The Doctor, clearly not as dead as the woman had believed, woke with a gasp. "Cass!"

"If you refer to your companion," the woman said, and the Doctor looked at her, the slight recognition clear on his face, "we are still attempting to extract her from the wreckage."

He rubbed his chest, taking a deep breath. "She wasn't my companion."

"She's almost certainly dead. No one could survive that crash."

He shrugged, grinning. "I did."

"No, we restored you to life," the Doctor's face fell, "but it's a temporary measure. You have a little under four minutes."

"Four minutes? That's ages. What if I get bored, or need a television, couple of books? Anyone for chess? Bring me knitting!"

The woman crouched so that she was at the Doctor's eye height. "You have so little breath left. Spend it wisely."

The Doctor frowned, seeming to finally focus on exactly what the woman was wearing. "Hang on…is it you? Am I back on Karn? You're the sisterhood of Karn," he stood, using the alter he'd been leaning against as a support, "Keepers of the Flame of utter boredom."

"Eternal life," the woman corrected.

"That's the one."

"Mock us if you will, but our elixir can trigger your regeneration, bring you back. Time Lord science is elevated here on Karn. The change doesn't have to be random. Fat or thin, young or old, man or woman?"

He eyed her carefully. "Why would you do this for me?"

"You have helped us in the past."

He lifted his eyebrows. "You were never big on gratitude."

"The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords threatens all reality. You are the only hope left, now that she has abandoned it."

He frowned. "She?"

"The protector who could have turned the tides of the battle with the armies of the universe. The one who ran."

"Sounds nice. Maybe I should try it."

The woman tilted her head. "You can't ignore it forever."

"Apparently I can."

"She was not able to fight. But you have the chance to."

He shook his head. "I will not fight."

"Because you are the good man, as you call yourself?"

The Doctor's jaw clenched. "I call myself the Doctor."

"It's the same thing in your mind."

"I'd like to think so."

The woman stepped back, gesturing to the side as Cass, the one rescued from the crash, was brought in and placed on an altar. "In that case, Doctor, attend your patient." The Doctor rushed over, scanning her with his sonic, looking for any chance he had to help save her. "You're wasting your time. She is beyond even our help."

"She wanted to see the universe," he mumbled.

"She didn't miss much. It's very nearly over."

"I could have saved her. I could have got her off, but she wouldn't listen."

"Then she was wiser than you. She understood there was no escaping the Time War, not even for the protector. You are a part of this, Doctor, whether you like it or not. There are some points even you can't escape."

"I would rather die," he snapped.

"You're dead already," the woman reminded him. "How many more will you let join you?" he was quiet. "If she could speak, what would she say?"

"To me?" he shook his head. "Nothing. I'm a Time Lord. Everything she despised."

"She would beg your help," the woman corrected, "as we beg your help now. The universe stands on the brink. One has already made her choice, but will you let it fall? Fast or strong, wise or angry. What do you need now?"

The Doctor let his hand hover over Cass's belt, considering it.

He didn't know the other woman, this protector. He didn't know any other Time Lord who'd been able to escape the war, who'd tried to run from it. Every one of his people had been swallowed by the war, drowned by it. Only he'd been able to escape the pull and even that hadn't lasted forever.

But this protector, she'd managed. She'd abandoned them to their fate. She'd known there was no way to save a people that had been tainted by blood.

He wondered if he would have been given this choice if she'd still been there. If the protector hadn't abandoned Gallifrey. Would his decision, his involvement, still have mattered?

He wondered if she'd ever seen war before. If the woman understood what it was like to stand on a battlefield, to command, to change the course of a battle.

No, she didn't. She wouldn't. She'd had the chance to do it in this war and she'd refused.

She didn't know what it was like to fight. Only to run and hide.

"Warrior," the Doctor said quietly. She was no protector; she'd left everyone to suffer. She'd betrayed them all. The Time War didn't need someone to abandon it, it needed someone to end it.

And that someone needed to be a warrior.

"Warrior?" the woman asked, clarifying, ensuring he was certain.

"I don't suppose there's a need for a doctor anymore. Make me a warrior now."

The woman took a goblet from someone who was standing to the side of the room, holding it out to him. "I took the liberty of preparing this one myself."

He took it, breathing deeply. "Get out. Get out! All of you." All of the women left, but the eldest took a moment longer, pausing before she left. "Will it hurt?"

The woman didn't turn back to look at him. "Yes."

"Good." He looked into the goblet again. "Charley, C'rizz, Lucie, Tamsin, Molly…friends, companions I've known, I salute you. And Cass…I apologize." He held up the goblet. "Physician, heal thyself."

A second after drinking the contents, he dropped the goblet, his hands already glowing gold. The light encompassed him, surrounded him, turned him into what the war, the universe, needed.

Turned him into what she'd refused to become, what she would always refuse to be.

What he was, what he hated himself for being.

No more.

|C-S|

The Time Lords sat side by side reading their individual books on one level of the TARDIS steps. The Doctor had chosen one on Advanced Quantum Mechanics that Adelaide had recommended, while she'd taken the TARDIS manual in another futile attempt to learn how to pilot the Doctor's version of the ship. She could manage to do it quite effectively but it was rather annoying when she'd go for something that wasn't there because his stupid TARDIS was a few generations behind her own.

At one point, after she'd spent about twenty minutes looking for a very specific function, she'd considered drugging the Doctor, hunting down her old TARDIS wherever it landed and forcing them to use that one instead. Then, at least, she would know how to pilot it and he wouldn't.

Though, knowing him, he'd probably figure it out in five minutes anyway.

But the fact she both didn't know where her TARDIS actually was and that it was most likely too destroyed and damaged to allow anyone, even her, inside – most likely phasing in and out of existence, attempting to repair itself but unable to really do it – convinced Adelaide that she shouldn't do that, at least not yet.

Instead, she just found the TARDIS manual where the Doctor had hidden it and decided to properly learn. He'd offered to teach her but she'd reminded him he wasn't actually the best teacher.

The Doctor had pouted at that, but she'd promised that one day, in the future, she would let him try.

Neither of them looked up when the TARDIS doors burst open as Clara rode in on her motorbike, having gotten their message.

"Manners," Adelaide called. Clara just smirked, clicking her fingers to close the TARDIS doors behind her as she pulled off her helmet. "Ever heard of knocking?"

The Doctor spun standing, pointing at Clara. "Remember, always be polite, otherwise Adelaide won't like you, and…"

"…and you want Adelaide to like you," Clara finished, having heard him say that many times. "Sorry, Adelaide."

"Apology accepted." The Time Lady stood as well, catching the book that the Doctor threw at her before going to put them back.

"Fancy a week in ancient Mesopotamia followed by future Mars?" the Doctor asked Clara, spinning around the console.

"Will there be cocktails?"

He nodded. "On the moon."

"The moon'll do."

The pair laughed, embracing quickly, before Clara turned to Adelaide as the Time Lady returned to their level of the console. "Are you enjoying being a teacher?" When Clara had first told Adelaide that she wanted, she'd sat the woman down and ensured she properly understood the responsibilities surrounding becoming a teacher.

Clara had been a bit shocked, as despite having realized Adelaide had been a teacher - you couldn't act like she did and not have been - that level of confrontation was not something Adelaide did. She'd been able to convince Adelaide, thankfully, that she properly understood everything involved.

It had been strange, even for Adelaide, to do something like that, but she'd still felt some responsibility for the teaching profession…even if she'd only been doing it officially to bide time before she could travel. But Clara was doing it for a different reason, she actually liked it, and Adelaide liked that.

More likely than not, Clara would be a better teacher than Adelaide could have ever hoped to be simply because she actually liked her job.

Clara grinned. "Loving it." Adelaide smiled.

The Doctor swung an arm over Adelaide's shoulders. "Teach anything good?"

"Learn anything good?"

He pointed at her, spinning away from Adelaide to move to the console…only for an alert to sound a second before the entire box actually jolted.

"What's happening?" Clara asked, having a guess that this was not what was supposed to have happened.

"Whoa, whoa!" the Doctor grabbed the console. "We're taking off, but the engines aren't going."

Adelaide sighed, pulling out her old phone from her pocket. Despite what she'd claimed to the Doctor multiple times, she had not in fact lost Caroline's phone. Honestly, it had fallen out of her pocket a few times, but after a few nights of tinkering with it, she'd been able to set it to teleport to her pocket if they were ever apart for too long or too far apart. It wouldn't work if she was no longer in the time period, but it was effective in most instances it was required.

She knew this because she almost never noticed it was gone, even after many circumstances where it most certainly should have been lost.

As she dialed, she opened the door to look out, the Doctor running over to look as well.

The TARDIS was flying…via the helicopter carrying it.

"How rude," Adelaide mumbled. She had a guess who was responsible, given what time they'd landed in.

After a second, someone answered. "Hello? Kate Stewart's phone."

"Yes, hello, this is Adelaide. May I speak to Kate, please? Thank you."

"Oh!" the woman on the other side gasped. "Hold on!" Her voice went faint but Adelaide could hear her running somewhere. The Doctor didn't even bother attempting to take it from her; he'd given her control of the phone long ago. "Excuse me! Ma'am. Ma'am!"

"The ravens are looking a bit sluggish," Kate said, in the distance. "Tell Malcolm they need new batteries."

"It's her! Sorry, it's your personal phone, but, well…I recognized the ringtone." Adelaide made a note to jump back in the timelines and ensure Kate had her personal cell phone number. "It's her. And him, I should guess." The woman sounded quite out of breath.

"Inhaler," Kate said, louder now that the phone had been passed to her. "Adelaide, hello. We found the TARDIS in a field. I'm having it brought in."

She sighed. "Does no one know how to knock?"

"Where are you?" Kate asked. Adelaide just held her phone out, letting Kate hear the helicopter above. "Oh my God! Adelaide, I'm so sorry. We had no idea you were still in there."

"Precisely why you should knock." She turned, walking back up to the console. The TARDIS swung, knocking the Doctor soundly out of the TARDIS. Clara just managed to grab his feet before he tumbled out. Adelaide turned. "Well."

"I'm having you taken directly to the scene." Kate paused, seeming to realize what Adelaide had just said. "Adelaide, is everything alright?"

"The Doctor has fallen out of the TARDIS. See you soon." She hung up, putting her phone away before she hurried to help Clara pull the Doctor back into the TARDIS, despite the man's shouts that he quite liked it out there, lots of fresh air.

|C-S|

The Time Lords stepped out of the TARDIS together, Clara right behind them, into the group of UNIT soldiers that had gathered around where the TARDIS had been placed.

"Attention!" a soldier shouted, Kate and another young woman joining the group.

Instinctively, the Doctor saluted before frowning. "Why am I saluting?"

"Doctor, Adelaide," Kate nodded, "as Chief Scientific Officer, may I extend the official apologizes of UNIT…"

The Doctor interrupted her. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart, a word to the wise. As I'm sure your father would have told you, I don't like being picked up."

Clara winced. "That probably sounded better in his head."

"And," the Doctor continued, not stopped, "now you've gone and made Adelaide cross with you, and that's never good."

"I'm not cross."

Kate raised her eyebrows. "I'm acting on instructions direct from the throne. Sealed orders from her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the first." She held out a faded parchment envelope.

The Time Lords, without thinking, tensed.

They always did when an adventure between him and Caroline was mentioned.

Clara shook her head. "The Queen? The first? Sorry, Elizabeth the first?"

Kate nodded. "Her credentials are inside." The Doctor took the envelope from her, preparing to open it when Kate stopped him. "No. Inside." She gestured back at the national gallery they were standing in front of.

The whole group began to move towards the building, though the Doctor did pause beside the young woman, who was wearing quite an impressive scarf. "Nice scarf." The girl's cheeks went a bit pink.

|C-S|

Once inside the gallery, Kate and a soldier took the lead, with Clara hurrying up to walk beside the Time Lords. "Did you know her, Elizabeth the first?"

"Unified Intelligence Task Force," the Doctor said instead, rather hoping to avoid any more discussion of Elizabeth than absolutely necessary.

"Sorry?"

"This lot." He gestured around them. "UNIT. They investigate alien stuff. Anything alien."

"What, like you?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I work for them."

That shocked Clara more than anything else. "You have a job?"

He pouted. "Why shouldn't I have a job? I'd be brilliant at having a job."

"You don't have a job."

"I do. This is my job! I'm doing it now."

Clara shook her head. "You never have a job."

"I do. I do."

Clara looked at Adelaide. "He doesn't have a job."

She was stopped continuing to answer when the painting before them was unveiled. "Elizabeth's credentials," Kate said quietly, somehow grasping the gravity of the sight.

It was a 3D, a Gallifreyan, painting of a Gallifreyan city in the midst of war.

A city being destroyed.

A city Adelaide had abandoned.

Without looking, the Time Lords grasped hands, needing each other.

The Doctor had stopped the war, had walked in the blood-soaked streets and stopped it, but Adelaide had run away. Adelaide could have stopped it and she didn't. She didn't even try. And this city was what she'd made.

"But…" Clara breathed, stepping closer, "but that's not possible."

"No more," the Doctor said quietly.

Kate nodded. "That's the title."

"I know the title."

"Also known as Gallifrey Falls."

Adelaide swallowed heard. "This painting doesn't belong here."

"Obviously," Clara agreed, though the human couldn't possibly understand exactly what the painting represented.

"It's the fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city."

Clara moved to the side, seeing how deep the painting went, how actually 3D it was. "But how is it doing that? How is that possible? It's an oil painting in 3D."

"Time Lord art." The Doctor shrugged. "Bigger on the inside. A slice of real-time, frozen."

"Elizabeth told us where to find it," Kate said, "and its significance."

Its significance to the Doctor, to the Time Lord who'd been there. To the Time Lord who had seen it.

Clara glanced at the Time Lords. "You okay?"

"He was there," the Doctor whispered.

"Who was?"

"Me. The other me. The one I don't talk about."

He'd told her, once, before they'd truly known they were Aligned. When they'd been discussing the War and their true roles in it.

Clara shook her head. "I don't understand."

"I've had many faces, many lives. I don't admit to all of them. There's one life I've tried very hard to forget. He was the Doctor who fought in the Time War, and that was the day he did it…the day I did it. The day he killed them all. The last day of the Time War. The war to end all wars between our people and the Daleks. And in that battle there was a man with more blood on his hands than any other, a man who would commit a crime that would silence the Universe. And that man…was me."

|C-S|

On the planet Adelaide had abandoned, in the city the Doctor had walked, two Time Lords were attempting to save the war. They hurried through the halls of the Citadel of Arcadia, one, the General, leading the way. Androgar, the other, was giving a report. "The High Council is in emergency session. They have plans of their own."

"To hell with the High Council. Their plans have already failed. Gallifrey's still in the line of fire." They entered the war room. "Any word on her?"

Androgar shook his head. The majority of Gallifrey thought the Time Lady a story, a curse, but there were a few who knew the truth.

Who knew there was – had been, by now – a Time Lady who could have helped but didn't.

"No, sir. It's believed she actually did it." Androgar said 'it' with a glare. Most Time Lords would never even dream of doing what she'd done for any reason, let alone to abandon their people.

The General clenched his jaw. He'd only met the Time Lady once, before the planet had truly reached the point beyond salvation. He'd been supposed to convince her to use whatever influence she'd been able to gather to bring more troops to aid her people, to help save them.

The Time Lady had said nothing, but he'd known that she wouldn't do as he'd asked.

But he hadn't thought she'd go this far.

"Very well. Leave her to the universe, if she loves it so much." He stepped up to the table in the center of the room. "He was there, then?" There was no need to give names to the two Time Lords they'd discussed. They knew what they meant.

"He left a message, a written warning for the Daleks." The image shifted to a wall with 'No More' written on it. "He's a fool."

"No, he's a madman." He glared at the image.

"As you can see, sir, all Dalek fleets surrounding the planet now converging on the capital," the image shifted to a map of Arcadia, "but the Sky Trenches are holding."

The entire building shook. "Where did he go next?"

"What does it matter? This is their biggest ever attack, sir. They're throwing everything at us…"

"Sir," a nearby Time Lady, one of the many there monitoring reports, rushed over, "we have a security breach to the Time Vaults!"

The General frowned, moving to a terminal that brought up a display of the vaults in question, with a blinking vault in one that made him pause. "The Omega Arsenal, where all the forbidden weapons are locked away."

Androgar shook his head. "They're not forbidden anymore, not since she vanished. We've used them all against the Daleks."

"No. No, we haven't."

 **A/N: The Time War has begun :)**


	30. You

**You**

Clara looked to Kate, still not understanding precisely what was going on. "But the Time War's over. Why have you brought us here to look at a painting?"

"The painting only serves as Elizabeth's credentials, proof that the letter is from her. It's not why you're here."

The Doctor, carefully, broke the seal on the letter and unfolded it, holding it so that Adelaide could read too.

The letter wasn't addressed to her, but he didn't really care.

'My dearest Doctor, I hope the painting known as Gallifrey Falls will serve as proof that it is your Elizabeth who writes to you now. You will recall that you pledged yourself to the safety of my kingdom. In this capacity I have appointed you as curator and protector of the Under Gallery, where deadly danger to England is locked away. Should any disturbance occur within its walls, it is my wish that you be summoned. Godspeed, my friends.'

The Time Lords paused. Elizabeth hadn't directed the letter to her, but there were two noticeable slips that made them think they'd told her to keep Adelaide's existence a secret, but she had wanted to ensure they knew she meant both of them.

He looked up to Kate. "What happened?"

"Easier to show you." Kate gestured towards the side, into another room.

There was a large painting of Elizabeth on the wall opposite them, life-sized, with the Doctor's last regeneration and…Caroline beside her. They both stopped, staring, and a metal shutter closed behind them.

Clara nodded. "Elizabeth the first. You knew her, then?"

"A long time ago, apparently," Adelaide breathed. "Another lifetime."

|C-S|

The police telephone box looked rather unsuspecting sitting in a meadow beside a river...if one ignored the fact it was a few centuries too soon.

The TARDIS doors burst open and the Doctor galloped out on a white horse, a short brunette woman riding with her arms wrapped around him. A few steps behind them was another horse, with a few brown spots, and the red-headed woman astride it.

"Allons-y!" the 10th Doctor cheered as the two horses came to a stop, Caroline laughing. "There you go, your Majesty, what did I tell you? Bigger on the inside."

"The door isn't," Elizabeth huffed. "It nearly took my head off. It's normally me who does that."

The Doctor grinned and swung himself off the horse, hurrying to help Caroline down as well. They stayed like that for a second too soon, only stepping apart when Elizabeth gave a rather pointed cough.

For this was the time after Donna, when he was selfish and jealous and knew he should have left Caroline but hadn't. After Rose and the Doctor being certain.

And after Caroline really realizing that the universe, that every world they encountered, wondered why such a wonderful man was traveling with someone like her.

After their first real kiss, after the last kiss that the Doctor and Caroline would ever share.

After Caroline didn't want to get too close to the Doctor, and the Doctor wanted nothing but.

"Tell me, Doctor," Elizabeth said, leading them over to the picnic that they'd abandoned when they'd had to run off for an adventure, "why I'm wasting my time on you." The Doctor laid back, supporting himself on his elbows, while Caroline sat next to him, as close as she dared. "I have wars to plan."

"You" he took a strawberry and passed it to Caroline, who smiled "have a picnic to eat."

"You could help me."

He nodded, taking a group of grapes for himself. "Well, we're helping you eat the picnic."

"But you have a stomach for war." Elizabeth addressed the Doctor specifically. "This face has seen conflict, it's as clear as day."

The man's face fell and he took Caroline's hand without thinking.

They tended to do that.

"Oh, I've seen conflict like you wouldn't believe." His voice was dark, his mind lost, and Caroline gently touched something in her pocket with her free hand. "But it wasn't this face." He paused, silent, before leaping up to his feet and consequently dragging Caroline up with him. "But never mind that, your Majesty. Up on your feet. Up, up!"

Elizabeth frowned. "How dare you? I'm the Queen of England."

"I'm not English," he shrugged.

Elizabeth shook her head, looking at Caroline. "How wonderful to see a wife so supportive of her husband's oddities."

Caroline and the Doctor instantly stepped apart, both faces going slightly pink. "We're not…" Caroline stammered.

"Why ever not?" Elizabeth frowned. "Surely he has asked you?" The couple said nothing. "Oh, Doctor! Are you afraid of refusal? For I can promise you, any woman you asked to marry, even one as singularly remarkable as Caroline, would be a lucky one – I myself would agree instantly."

The Doctor grinned then, satisfied. "Ah, gotcha!" He grabbed Caroline's hand again. He had been taunting the 'queen' for some time, trying to make her slip up. Admittedly, making her think that he and Caroline were married was not what he'd intended, but it had worked in his favor nonetheless.

Elizabeth stood too, frowning. "What?"

"One, the real Elizabeth would never have accepted a marriage proposal, even one she was suggesting herself. Two, the real Elizabeth would notice when I just casually mentioned having a different face. But then the real Elizabeth isn't a shape-shifting alien from outer space. And…" he pulled a device from his pocket. "Ding." It dinged.

"What's that?"

"It's a machine that goes…ding." It dinged. "Made it myself. Lights up in the presence of shape-shifter DNA. Ooo. Also, it can microwave frozen dinners from up to twenty feet and download comics from the future." He shrugged, glancing at Caroline. "I never know when to stop."

Elizabeth shook her head. "I do not understand."

"Oh yes, you do. You're a Zygon."

"A Zygon?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Oh, stop it. It's over. A Zygon, yes. Big red rubbery thing covered in suckers. Think the real Queen of England would just decide to spill personal secrets to any old handsome bloke in a tight suit and his lovely companion, just cos he's got amazing hair and nice horses…" Caroline pulled on the Doctor's hand, making him turn and see that, actually, he'd been wrong.

Elizabeth wasn't the Zygon. The horse he and Caroline had been riding was.

"It was the horse." He grabbed Elizabeth with his free hand, tossing the 'dinging' device to Caroline in the same motion. "Run!"

They ran towards the palace. "What's happening?" Elizabeth asked.

"We're being attacked by a shape-shifting alien from outer space, formerly disguised as my horse."

Caroline pulled them all into a small outcropping at the base of the nearby palace, hiding from the Zygon and somehow ending back against the wall with the Doctor standing in front of her in the process, Elizabeth beside both of them, but none of them dared to move as the Zygon ran past.

"What does that mean?" Elizabeth hissed.

"It means we're going to need a new horse." The Doctor pulled them after the Zygon, nearing the surrounding woods before stopping.

"Where's it going?"

The Doctor let go of Elizabeth's hand. "We'll hold it off. You run. Your people need you." He'd spent too long with Caroline now to even dream of telling her to go off on her own to safety; not only would Caroline likely not agree, but he also didn't want her anywhere but near him when there was a Zygon wandering about.

And she'd been quite interested in Zygons when he'd first told her about them, so he wasn't going to deny her the chance to learn more about them.

|C-S|

The Doctor and Caroline hurried through the forest, following the Doctor's device, when they heard a scream in the distance. "Elizabeth!" the man shouted, redirecting them towards it. The device started to ding even more, coming to a crescendo when they neared…a rabbit.

"Oh, very clever," the Doctor shook his head, letting go of Caroline's hand and stepping up to the 'rabbit', moving her behind him. As interested as she was in Zygons, he much preferred he be the first one to face it. "Whatever you've got planned, forget it. I'm the Doctor. I'm nine hundred and four years old. I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I am the Oncoming Storm, the Bringer of Darkness…" he frowned, hearing Caroline attempting to suppress laughter behind him, "and you are basically just a rabbit, aren't you?" the rabbit did nothing. "Okay, carry on. Just a general warning." He spun to face Caroline. "Why didn't you say something?"

She just laughed. "It was very funny."

He grinned too, happy to see her happy.

"Doctor!" Elizabeth shouted somewhere in the distance and the duo took off running towards it again, finding her collapsed on the ground. They hurried to help her stand. "That thing…explain what it is. What does it want of us?"

"That's what we're trying to find out. Probably just your planet."

"Doctor," Caroline said, seeing something to their side, and the Doctor turned to see a second Elizabeth.

"Step away from her, Doctor, Caroline," the second Elizabeth said, stepping closer. "That's not me. That's the creature."

The first Elizabeth frowned. "How is that possible? She's me. Doctor, she's me!"

The Doctor, Caroline stepping closer to him, attempted to use his device but it just kept dinging, being really no help whatsoever.

"I am indeed me," the second Elizabeth nodded. "A compliment that cannot be extended to yourself."

"Extraordinary. The creature has captured my exact likeness. This is exceptional."

The second Elizabeth scoffed. "Exceptional? A queen would call it impertinent."

"A queen would feel compelled to admire the skill of the execution before arranging one."

"It's not working," the Doctor mumbled, hitting the device.

"One might surmise that the creature would learn quickly to protect itself from any simple means of detection."

The second Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "Clearly you understand the creature better than I. But then, you have the advantage."

The Doctor looked to Caroline, hoping she would have noticed something that would give them some sign of who the real Elizabeth was, but she didn't know enough about Zygons to have any real conclusion.

With a crack, a vortex appeared in the air above them. Immediately the Doctor pulled Caroline back, caring more about her safety than Elizabeth and the Zygon, whichever was which. "Back, both of you, now! That's a time fissure. A tear in the fabric of reality. Anything could happen."

A fez fell out.

"For instance, a fez."

|C-S|

"This way," Kate said as the painting opened, bringing them through to another set of hidden halls. "Welcome to the Under Gallery." She brought them to a room full of shadows covered in cloth, the ground covered by something that appeared, at first glance, to be dust. "This is where Elizabeth the first kept all art deemed too dangerous for public consumption."

The Doctor squat, picking up a handful and letting it fall from his hand. "Stone dust."

Adelaide glanced at the statues around them, using her sonic to ensure the Doctor was correct about his analysis, but her rudimentary scan couldn't tell her that much.

"Is it important?" Kate frowned.

"In twelve hundred years I've never stepped in anything that wasn't." He jumped up, grinning at Adelaide.

She looked at the woman with the rather long scarf that had followed the entire group, who happened to wheeze at that moment. "Hello. Are you the one who answered the phone?" The woman nodded. "Name, please?"

"Yes…" the woman mumbled, obviously a bit in shock.

The Doctor spun, putting his arm around Adelaide. "Good. I've always wanted to meet someone called Yes."

Adelaide looked at Kate, raising her eyebrows for the woman to answer for her. "Osgood."

"Osgood, analyze the stone dust, please."

The Doctor pointed. "And we want a report in triplicate, with lots of graphs and diagrams and complicated sums on my desk, tomorrow morning, ASAP, pronto, LOL." He grinned at Clara. "See? Job." He paused. "Do I have a desk?"

"No."

"And I want a desk." He nodded. "And Adelaide gets one too."'

Kate looked at Osgood. "Get a team. Analyze the stone dust." She turned to walk out, and the Doctor's wink to Osgood made her wheeze again. "Inhaler!"

The Time Lords and Clara followed Kate into another display room, this one filled with various exhibits and other paintings. One in particular caught the Doctor's attention; a red fez. He stepped to the side, picking it up and showing it off to Adelaide as though she hadn't seen it.

Clara just shook her head at him. "Someday, you could just walk past a fez."

"Never going to happen," Adelaide told him, taking the Doctor's free hand and forcing him to continue walking into the next room.

There were landscapes on the walls here, but the floor was covered in shattered glass.

"As you instructed," one of the scientists in the room said, "nothing has been touched."

Kate gestured at the room. "This is why we called you in."

"3D again," Clara pointed out, nodding at the paintings.

The Doctor made to kneel down to the glass's level, but Adelaide caught him a moment before he could. "That is shattered glass," she told him without looking. "Do not touch it."

He pouted, but took a theatrical step back and picked up a large piece that had fallen a bit away. Adelaide raised her eyebrows at him, but he just grinned, holding up the glass for them both to study. "Interesting."

"The broken glass?"

"Notice everything," Adelaide said, putting on a voice Clara was starting to recognize as the 'teacher voice'. "Use your eyes. The shatter pattern shows that the glass was broken from the inside."

Kate nodded. "As you can see, all the paintings are landscapes. No figures of any kind."

"So?"

"There used to be." Kate handed them a tablet with the original image.

Clara's eyes widened. "Something's got out of the paintings."

"Lots of somethings. Dangerous." The Doctor looked around the room, as though they were somewhere in the rather small room that no one had noticed yet.

"This whole place has been searched. There's nothing here that shouldn't be, and nothing's got out."

With a small burst, a vortex appeared in the air behind them.

The Doctor groaned. "Oh no, not now…"

"This is interesting," Adelaide mumbled, frowning.

"Doctor, Adelaide, what is it?"

"No, not now!" he shouted at the vortex. "We're busy!"

"Is it to do with the paintings?"

"No, this is different," Adelaide said.

"I remember this…almost remember."

Adelaide couldn't help but smile. "Now you'll know how it feels." She took the fez from him, holding it up, and the Doctor's eyes widened.

"Oh, of course. This is where we come in." Without another word Adelaide threw the fez into the vortex, the Time Lords taking hands. "Geronimo!" they ran forwards, into the vortex, vanishing.

|C-S|

The two Time Lords fell out of the vortex with a thud, the Doctor ending up facedown and Adelaide just landing quite heavily on her knees, though she pulled the Doctor up with her almost immediately.

Standing before them, looking a mixture of shock and terror, was the last Doctor, two versions of young Elizabeth the first, and…Caroline.

One of the Elizabeth's frowned at the new arrivals. "Who are they?"

The 10th Doctor, if possible, moved Caroline even more behind him, clearly viewing the new arrivals as threats. "That's just what I was wondering."

"Oh, that is skinny," the 11th Doctor said, eyeing himself. "That is proper skinny. I've never seen it from the outside. It's like a special effect." He spotted that the 10th Doctor had put on the fez at some point. "Oi!" he pulled it off. "Ha! Matchstick man!"

The 10th Doctor's eyes widened, with Caroline frowning behind him. Adelaide was honestly a bit impressed at how quickly her human self was figuring things out. "You're not…" both men stepped forward, pulling out their sonics. The 10th Doctor turned his on first, making it whir, before the 11th did the same – his extending and expanding. "Compensating?"

"For what?"

"Regeneration. It's a lottery."

Caroline moved to stand more beside the Doctor, frowning at both of them. The 10th Doctor was very possessively holding her hand, which the 11th Doctor realized, at that moment, he was also doing to Adelaide.

"Oh, he's cool." The 11th Doctor made a face. "Isn't he cool? I'm the Doctor and I'm cool. Oops, I'm wearing sandshoes."

Adelaide sighed. "Be nice to yourself, please."

"Sandshoes!"

"You picked them."

The 10th Doctor frowned at her. "You're my companion, then?"

"Yes, you could say that."

The man looked down at their clasped hands and, not so subtly, pulled Caroline a bit closer to him. "What are you doing here? I'm busy."

"Really?" Adelaide raised her eyebrows, managing to get Caroline to crack a smile. "One of them is a Zygon."

That confused the 10th Doctor even more. "How do you know that?"

"As far as I'm aware, Elizabeth the first didn't have an identical twin. And Zygons are a shapeshifting alien. Made a guess."

There was another crack and the vortex appeared behind them again, making both versions of the Doctor spin to look at it, putting on their respective glasses. When they both noticed, they pointed at each other, grinning. "Oh, lovely…"

"Your Majesties," Adelaide said, turning to the two Queens. "Likely a good time to run."

"But what about the creature?" the two women looked at the 10th Doctor.

"Elizabeth, whichever one of you is the real one, turn and run in the opposite direction to the other one."

Both women nodded, "of course," and turned and walked off in opposite directions.

"Quick introductions?" the 11th Doctor offered, the future pair silently agreeing that they needed to keep up the charade that Adelaide was just a new companion as long as possible.

They knew that Caroline understood that the Doctor had other companions, that he would have more after she was gone, but if she knew that Adelaide was actually another member of his species – and, actually, her, but they weren't going to even consider her that – she would be crushed.

"This is Caroline Attwater," the 10th Doctor leaped at the chance, "she's lovely."

Caroline gave a little wave. "Hello."

Adelaide nodded at her human self. The woman was clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation and all the focus on her. The 11th Doctor, meanwhile, wanted to outdo his past self. "This is Adelaide…Oswald." He grinned. "She's delightful."

"Doctor?" Clara called from behind them. "Adelaide? Is that you?"

The 11th Doctor spun. "Ah, hello, Clara! Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, it's me," Clara said. "We can here you. Where are you?"

Adelaide looked to the 10th Doctor. "Where are we?"

"England, 1562."

"Who are you talking to?"

"Myself," the Doctors said in unison, grinning at each other.

"Can you come back through?" Kate called.

"Physical passage may not be possible in both dimensions," the 11th Doctor shrugged. "It's…ah!" he held up the fez. "Hang on! Fez incoming!" he threw it into the vortex, everyone going quiet as they waited.

"Nothing here," Clara told them.

The 10th Doctor frowned. "So where did it go?" The 11th Doctor and Adelaide glanced at each other and shrugged. "Okay, you used to be me, you've done all this before. What happens next?"

"I don't remember."

"How can you forget this?" the 10th Doctor gestured between himself and the 11th.

"Hey, hang on," the 11th pointed at him. "It's not my fault. You're obviously not paying enough attention and Ad-" he cut himself off before he said anything more. "You're not paying attention! Reverse the polarity." Both Doctors turned again, sonicing the vortex, but nothing happened. "It's not working."

"You're both reversing the polarity," Adelaide told them.

"Yes," the 11th nodded, "I know that."

"There're two of you. You're reversing it, he's reversing it back again."

The 10th nodded. "We're confusing the polarity."

They were cut off by a third man falling out of the vortex.

A man Adelaide did not recognize but had a very good guess, given the immediate reactions of the Doctors, who this could be.

Both men, without thinking, pulled Adelaide and Caroline behind them, instinctively needing to protect them.

"Anyone lose a fez?" the new arrival asked, holding it up.

"You…" the 10th Doctor sneered, glaring.

 **A/N: Caroline is back!**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _gossamermouse101: Glad you're excited for the 50th :)_

 _time-twilight: Managed to avoid that revelation right now, but that's no guarantee for the future ;)_


	31. Him

**Him**

"How can you be here?" the 10th Doctor frowned. "More to the point, why are you here?"

"Good afternoon," the man smiled, "I'm looking for the Doctor."

The two Doctors glanced at each other. "Well, you've certainly come to the right place."

"Good. Right." The man put his arms behind his back. "Well, who are you boys and girls?" He nodded. "Oh, of course. Are you his companions?"

The 11th Doctor looked quite offended by the concept. "His companions?"

He shook his head at them. "They get younger all the time." He smiled at Adelaide. "Well, if you could point me in the general direction of the Doctor?" Both Doctors held up their sonics. "Really?"

"Yeah," the 11th nodded.

"Really," the 10th added.

"You're me?" Adelaide glanced at Caroline, seeing the small smile on the human's face, a sign that she'd started working it out too. "Both of you?"

"Yep."

"Even that one?" he pointed at the 11th.

"Yes!"

"You're my future selves?"

"Yes!" the Doctors said in unison.

"Am I having a midlife crisis?" he frowned at the two sonics the other men were still pointing at him. "Why are you pointing your screwdrivers like that? They're scientific instruments, not water pistols." The two lowered the devices. "Look like you've seen a ghost."

"Still, loving the posh gravelly thing," the 10th Doctor shrugged. "It's very convincing."

"Brave words, Dick van Dyke," the 11th added.

"Play nice, children," Adelaide sighed.

A group of soldiers ran up to them. "Encircle them!" the nobleman leading them ordered, the soldiers moving to surround them completely. The Doctors immediately pulled out their sonics, aiming them at the men. "Which of you is the Doctor? The Queen of England is bewitched. I would have the Doctor's head."

"Well, this has all the makings of your lucky day," the other Doctor said, smiling.

"I think there's three of them now," Clara whispered behind them.

"There's a precedent for that."

The nobleman looked around wildly for the source of the sound. "What is that?"

The other Doctor sighed, noticing the way the Doctors were pointing their sonics. "Oh, the pointing again. They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble a cabinet at them?"

The 11th Doctor waited a second before looking at Adelaide. "Anything?"

"Don't be rude," she told the other Doctor and he grinned at her.

"That thing," the nobleman asked, spotting the vortex and pointing a shaking hand at that. "What witchcraft is it?"

"Ah, yes," the 11th Doctor spun, pointing at the nobleman. "Now that you mention it, that is witchcraft. Yes, yes, yes. Witchy witchcraft. Hello?" he turned to the vortex. "Hello in there, excuse me, hello! Am I talking to the wicked witch of the well? Clara?"

"Hello?"

"Clara, hi, hello. Hello! Would you mind telling these prattling mortals to get themselves begone?"

"…what he said."

The 11th Doctor sighed. "Yes, tiny bit more color."

"Right." Clara cleared her throat. "Prattling mortals, off you pop, or I'll turn you all into frogs!"

"Ooo, frogs," the 11th Doctor wiggled his fingers. "Nice. You heard her."

"Doctor, what's going on?"

"It's a timey-wimey thing."

The other Doctor frowned, shaking his head. "Timey what? Timey-wimey?"

The 10th Doctor leaned forward. "I have no idea where he picks that stuff up."

All of the soldiers fell to their knees as one of the Elizabeths walked up. "The Queen. The Queen."

The woman eyed the five of them. "You don't seem to be kneeling. How tremendously brave of you."

The 10th Doctor frowned at her. "Which one are you? What happened to the other one?"

Elizabeth smirked. "Indisposed. Long live the Queen."

"Long live the Queen!"

"Arrest these men and women. Take them to the Tower."

The 10th Doctor moved forward. "That is not the Queen of England, that's an alien duplicate!" No one moved. "Really?"

"Hang on," the 11th Doctor frowned. "The Tower. Did you say the Tower? Love the Tower. Breakfast at eight, please. Will there be Wi-Fi?"

"Are you capable of speaking without flapping your hands about?" the other Doctor asked him, growing more and more frustrated by his future selves as time went on.

"Yes." The Doctor frowned, having done just that. "No." He turned back to the soldiers. "I demand to be incarcerated in the Tower immediately with my co-conspirators Sandshoes, Grandad, Mermaid, and Lovely."

"Granddad?" the other Doctor scoffed.

"They're not sandshoes!"

The other Doctor shrugged. "Yes, they are."

"Silence!" Elizabeth snapped. "The Tower is not to be taken lightly. Very few emerge again."

|C-S|

The warden shoved the five of them inside. "Come on, you lot, get in there!"

"Ow," the other Doctor grumbled, stumbling.

The 10th Doctor caught Caroline before she could do the same, making Adelaide smile where no one could see.

Adelaide tossed the 11th Doctor a piece of metal she'd spotted, knowing they'd had a similar plan, and the man began to carve something into the pillar. "Three of us in one cell?" he commented, Adelaide moving to lean against the other side of the pillar he worked on. "That's going to cause some nasty anomalies if we don't get out soon."

The 10th Doctor frowned at him, taking Caroline's hand again. "What are you doing?"

"Getting us out."

The other Doctor started to sonic the door. Caroline, after glancing at the 10th Doctor and catching his smile, spoke. "The sonic won't work. It's wood." The 10th Doctor looked extremely proud of her. So was Adelaide. She may not have had strong memories of being Caroline, but she did remember some of it. She did remember how it could feel.

"Okay," the 10th Doctor said, "so the Queen of England is now a Zygon. But never mind that. Why are we all together? Why are we all here? Well, me and Chinny, we were surprised, but you came looking for us." He looked to the other Doctor. "You knew it was going to happen. Who told you?"

The 11th Doctor frowned, cutting in. "Oi, Chinny?"

The 10th Doctor shrugged. "Yeah, you do have a chin."

The 11th Doctor looked to Adelaide, clearly expecting her to either defend him or scold his past self for rudeness. She just smiled at him, which made him pout.

The other Doctor shook his head at the rest of them, turning back to the door. "In theory, I can trigger an isolated sonic shift among the molecules, and the door should disintegrate."

"We'd have to calculate the exact harmonic resonance of the entire structure down to a sub-atomic level," the 10th Doctor said, shaking his head. "Even the sonic would take years."

"No, no, the sonic would take centuries." He took a seat on the bench by the door. "Oh, we might as well get started. Help to pass the timey-wimey." He shook his head at his future selves. "Do you have to talk like children? What is it that makes you so ashamed of being a grown-up?" the other two Doctors looked away from him, both pulling their respective 'companions' closer to them. "Oh, the way you both look at me. What is that? I'm trying to think of a better word than dread."

"It must be really recent for you," the 10th Doctor said quietly, his grip tightening even more on Caroline's hand, the human practically standing in his arms.

The other Doctor frowned. "Recent?"

"The Time War," the 11th Doctor said. Adelaide's breath caught and Caroline frowned. "The last day. The day…you killed them all."

The day Adelaide had never seen because Adelaide had run. Because Adelaide had hidden.

The day Adelaide only knew happened when she returned to the universe because Caroline had been told.

That knowledge had seared itself into her Time Lady consciousness, though she hadn't understood that then.

This man had come from a day Adelaide sometimes tried to forget existed.

"The day we killed them all," the 10th Doctor corrected.

The 11th Doctor shrugged, focusing on carving again. "Same thing."

The other Doctor's eyes widened. "I don't talk about it."

The 10th Doctor glanced at him. "You're not talking about it. There's no one else here." Caroline pulled on his hand. "Caroline's a wonderful listener."

The other Doctor was quiet for a moment. Caroline and the 11th Doctor exchanged a look. "Did you ever count?"

"Count what?" Adelaide said, guessing, wishing she was wrong. Knowing she wasn't.

"How many children there were on Gallifrey that day."

Of course she wasn't. Why couldn't she just be wrong, for once?

Adelaide put her hands on her face, breathing hard. She'd thought about the Gallifreyan children she'd been leaving to suffer, but she'd chosen the rest of the universe's children instead. She'd chosen to ignore them and let them die because she hadn't done anything.

The 11th Doctor stopped scratching into the pillar. "I have absolutely no idea." He and Adelaide couldn't look at each other. Adelaide couldn't look at anybody.

They'd talked about it before. What he'd had to do, what she'd chosen to do. They'd faced it together and agreed that they weren't ready to discuss it, not really. Not yet.

Not now.

Not with Caroline, the woman Adelaide had become because she hadn't saved those children, frowning at them all.

"How old are you now?" the other Doctor asked the 11th.

"Ah, I don't know." He waved a hand. "I lose track. Twelve hundred and something, I think, unless I'm lying. I can't remember if I'm lying about my age, that's how old I am."

The other Doctor shook his head. "Four hundred years older than me, and in all that time you've never even wondered how many there were? You never once counted?"

"Tell me," the 11th looked at him, "what would be the point?"

"2.47 billion," the 10th Doctor said, making Caroline gasp. Adelaide didn't even flinch.

"You did count!"

The 10th Doctor glared at the 11th. "You forgot? Four hundred years, is that all it takes?"

"I moved on."

"Where? Where can you be now that you can forget something like that?"

"Adelaide?" Caroline said quietly, staring at the Time Lady and making everyone turn to do the same.

Adelaide was still standing there, her face in her hands, and taking deep breaths to keep herself calm. To keep herself present. To keep her rationality and her logic and everything that had ever kept her stable.

She'd run because she hadn't wanted to make the choice. She hadn't thought anyone should have to make that choice...no, she hadn't wanted to admit that she could have changed something. That she could have saved someone. She'd run knowing Daleks could win the war and destroy the universe and kill everyone she'd told herself her leaving might save.

She'd run because that was all she knew how to do.

The Doctor liked to think he ran, but he kept running towards things. He kept running back, kept running for something.

She just ran away.

She just ran away and become Caroline. Because a human who was never confident in her decisions, who was never confident in herself, who just wanted to hide away from the judgment of the rest of the universe. Who'd never felt loud enough, or right enough, or good enough.

Never enough.

"I'm fine," she whispered. "It's just…it's been a difficult few centuries." The word slipped out before she could stop herself, but Adelaide didn't bother correcting herself. She just glanced at the 11th Doctor and he nodded.

He knew she needed him just as much as he needed her at that moment. They needed to remember they weren't alone.

Her words still made the other three's eyes widen. "What?" the 10th Doctor gasped. "What? What? Centuries?" His voice dropped, going protective, dangerous. "Who are you?"

Adelaide lowered her hands, her face empty. "Spoilers."

"No." The 10th Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no. For once I would like to know where I'm going and what's going on."

"No," the 11th Doctor said, "you really wouldn't."

The other Doctor looked between the two men. "I don't know who you are, either of you. I haven't got the faintest idea." There was a moment of quiet as Adelaide and the 10th Doctor engaged in a staring contest - her watching the man start to realize just how similar Adelaide and Caroline's eyes actually were despite regeneration - before the other Doctor spoke again. "No."

The 10th Doctor broke the stare, looking at the other Doctor. "No?"

"Just...no." He looked down, the whole room quiet for some time. Adelaide moved to look at what the 11th Doctor was doing; she hadn't known exactly what he'd write, despite guessing he would write something. She needed something like this to focus on. Some theory or plan. Some logic. "Four hundred years."

The 10th Doctor, who'd started whispering to Caroline, giving her the answer to some question the human had thought of, looked towards the other Doctor. "I'm sorry?"

The other Doctor held up his sonic. "At a software level, they're all the same device, aren't they? Same software, different case."

"Yeah..."

"So?"

"So, it would take centuries for the screwdriver to calculate how to disintegrate the door. Scanning the door," he flicked on his sonic, scanning the door, "implanting the calculating as a permanent subroutine in the software architecture and, if you really are me, with your sandshoes and your dickie bow, and that screwdriver is still mine, that calculation is still going on."

The 10th Doctor held up his sonic, listening to it. "Yeah, still going."

The 11th Doctor did the same, grinning. "Calculation complete. Hey, four hundred years in four seconds." He looked between his past selves. "We may have had our differences, which is frankly odd in the circumstances, but, I tell you what, boys. We are incredibly clever."

The door burst open and Clara stumbled into the room, clearly having just stopped running.

"Incredibly foolish," Adelaide corrected, remembering the nicknames Clara had given them.

The 11th Doctor frowned at her. "How did you do that?"

Clara shrugged. "It wasn't locked."

The 11th Doctor turned to Adelaide, crossing his arms. "Did you know?"

"How could I have known?"

He grinned. "Because you're clever." Adelaide just sighed at him.

"So," Clara said, drawing their attention again, "they're both you, then, yeah?"

"Yes." The 11th Doctor nodded. "You've met them before. Don't you remember?"

Clara shrugged. "A bit." She eyed the 10th Doctor. "Nice suit." He grinned, and she turned to Caroline. "Is that..."

"Caroline," Adelaide cut in. "Caroline Attwater. One of the Doctor's previous companions."

Clara grinned, waving. "Hello, Caroline. I'm Clara Oswald."

Caroline nodded. "Hello."

"Hang on." Clara looked around them again. "Three of you in one cell and you," she pointed at Adelaide, "didn't think to try the door?"

The other Doctor shrugged. "It should have been locked."

"Yes," the 11th Doctor pointed at him. "Exactly. Why wasn't it locked?"

"Because" Elizabeth stepped into the doorway "I was fascinated to see what you would do upon escaping. I understand you're rather fond of this world. It's time I think you saw what's going to happen to it." She turned, leading them all out of the cell.

|C-S|

Elizabeth brought them to a section of the dungeons that appeared to be a Zygon control center. "The Zygons lost their own world. It burnt in the first days of the Time War."

"I saw the aftermath," Adelaide mumbled, only the 11th Doctor hearing. One of the many attempts by the Time Lords to convince her to help them stop the war, to show her the horrors that the Daleks could commit. As though she hadn't already known.

"A new home is required," Elizabeth continued.

Clara nodded. "So they want this one."

"Not yet. It's far too primitive. Zygons are used to a certain level of comfort."

"Commander," a Zygon said, stepping up to Elizabeth, "why are these creatures here?"

"Because I say they should be." Elizabeth straightened, eyeing the Zygon. "It is time you too were translated." She glanced at the group. "Observe this. I believe you will find it fascinating."

The Zygon put his hand on a small glass cube and vanished, reappearing inside the landscape that Adelaide, the 11th Doctor, and Clara had seen earlier.

"That's him!" Clara gasped. "That's the Zygon in the picture now."

"It's not a picture, it's a stasis cube," the other Doctor told her. "Time Lord art. Frozen instants in time, bigger on the inside, but could be deployed as..."

"Suspended animation," the 10th Doctor finished. "Oh, that's very good. The Zygons all pop inside the pictures, wait a few centuries till the planet's a bit more interesting, and then out they come."

"You see, Clara, Caroline," the 11th Doctor explained, not including Adelaide instinctively, "they're stored in the paintings in the Under Gallery, like cup-a-soup. Except you add time, if you can picture that." He shook his head. "Nobody could picture that. Forget I said cup-a-soups."

Clara smiled at him for a second, glancing at Caroline. "And now the world is worth conquering."

Caroline nodded. "The Zygons are invading the future from the past."

The 11th Doctor pointed at her, grinning. "Exactly!"

The 10th Doctor, after forcing himself to let go of Caroline, walked up to Elizabeth. "And do you know why I know that you're a fake? Because you're such a bad copy. It's not just the smell, or the unconvincing hair, or the atrocious teeth, or the eyes just a bit too close together, or the breath that could stun a horse. It's because Elizabeth, the real Elizabeth, would never be stupid enough to reveal her own plan. Honestly, why would you do that?"

"Because it's not my plan. And I am the real Elizabeth."

The 10th Doctor blinked, eyes widening. "Okay. So, backtracking a moment just to lend context to my earlier remarks."

The 11th Doctor mouthed "rude" to Adelaide, who attempted to ignore is attempt to make her laugh.

She was only just successful.

"My twin is dead in the forest. I am accustomed to taking precautions." She pulled a dagger from her garter. "These Zygon creatures never even considered that it was me who survived rather than their own commander. The arrogance that typifies their kind."

"Zygons?" Clara asked.

"Men."

"And you actually killed one of them?"

Elizabeth raised her eyebrows. "I may have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but at the time, so did the Zygon." She turned to the 10th Doctor and Caroline and, though it was mainly to the Time Lord, it was clear that however the three had met, Caroline had done something to gain the woman's favor. Adelaide wasn't surprised. "The future of my kingdom is imperiled. Doctor, can I rely on your service?"

"Well, I'm going to need my TARDIS."

Elizabeth nodded. "It has been procured already."

|C-S|

Elizabeth only allowed the 10th Doctor and Caroline leave after she'd taken the woman aside and had a private talk. Clara had attempted to make Adelaide tell her what Elizabeth was telling Caroline, as Clara did know Caroline was the human version of Adelaide - part of it had come from her few memories of the time tunnel and part had come from a strange conversation between Adelaide and Clara when the human had first asked her.

The Time Lady had flat out refused to reveal any of what Elizabeth said, reminding Clara that she didn't remember much from her human days...and that she was fairly certain the past versions of the Doctor and Caroline would end up forgetting this entire interaction because of the paradoxes present, so even if she had had perfect memories of her time as a human she wouldn't have maintained the conversation.

When Caroline did return to them, the 10th Doctor almost immediately taking her hand, she was blushing quite furiously, which only made Clara bug Adelaide about it more.

And made Adelaide make Clara promise not to bug Caroline about it.

Now, the whole group moved to enter the TARDIS, the 11th Doctor rubbing his hands together with the anticipation as the 10th Doctor unlocked it. "Right then, back to the future."

They all stepped inside, the other Doctor looking less than impressed. "You've let this place go a bit."

"Ah, his grunge phase," the 11th Doctor said, grinning. "He grows out of it."

The 10th Doctor rubbed the console. "Don't you listen to them." The console sparked, an alarm sounding too. "Ow! The desktop is glitching."

"Three of us from different time zones," the other Doctor said. "It's trying to compensate."

The walls, after a bit of messing by the Doctors, became what Adelaide recognized as the standard TARDIS interior. She'd been very quick to change her own TARDIS the moment she'd had the chance. "Hey, look," the 11th Doctor said, looking around. "The round things."

The 10th Doctor laughed. "I love the round things."

Caroline smiled. "They're quite nice."

"What are the round things?"

The 10th Doctor shrugged. "No idea."

"Oh dear, the friction contrafibulator," the 11th Doctor mumbled to himself, messing with something until the TARDIS became the Doctor's most recent design. "Ha! There, stabilized."

The 10th Doctor made a face. "Oh, you've redecorated. I don't like it."

The 11th Doctor looked at Adelaide. "Defend it? Please?"

"The lighting is quite terrible," she just said, making his mouth drop open.

"What?"

"Discussion for later." She raised her eyebrows, making him turn back to the rest of the group.

"Listen, we're going to the National Gallery," the 11th Doctor said. "The Zygons are underneath it."

"No, UNIT HQ," Clara said, making them all look at her. "They followed us there in the Black Archive." The Doctors' and Adelaide's eyes widened, though Caroline looked honestly confused. "Okay, so you've heard of that, then."

Caroline held up her hand, making the 10th Doctor turn to her. "The Black Archive is a collection of extremely dangerous alien artifacts," he explained. "Very bad. Very, very bad."

"Space-Time Telegraph?" the 11th Doctor asked, the other two men nodding, all stepping forward to work to both connect and pilot the TARDIS.

"...nuclear warhead twenty feet beneath us," Kate said. "Are you sitting comfortably?"

"You would destroy London?" another Kate, most likely a Zygon after what Clara had explained, asked.

"To save the world, yes, I would."

"You're bluffing," the other Kate scoffed.

"You really think so? Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. I am his daughter."

"Science leads, Kate," the 11th Doctor called. "Is that what you meant? Is that what your father meant?"

"Doctor?" Kate called, clearly confused.

"Space-Time Telegraph, Kate. A gift from me to your father, hotline straight to the TARDIS. I know about the Black Archive and I know about the security protocol. Kate, please. Please tell me you are not about to do something unbelievably stupid."

"I'm sorry, Doctor. Switch it off."

"Not as sorry as you will be," the 10th Doctor added. "This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with."

"Kate, we're trying to bring the TARDIS in. Why can't we land?"

"I said, switch it off!"

"Kate, you need to listen," Adelaide called, but the connection cut off. "Rude."

The 10th Doctor nodded. "The Tower of London, totally TARDIS-proof."

Clara frowned. "How can they do that?"

"Alien technology plus human stupidity." The 11th Doctor shrugged. "Trust me, it's unbeatable."

The other Doctor frowned, spotting the stasis cube on the console near where Adelaide had ended up standing. "We don't need to land."

The 10th Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Yeah, we do. A tiny bit. Try and keep up."

"Manners," Adelaide said, picking up the cube. "We don't."

The other Doctor grinned. "Cup-a-soup." He paused. "What is cup-a-soup?"

Adelaide picked up the TARDIS console phone, the Time Lord not even attempting to contradict her, and dialed the particular UNIT employee they'd walked with earlier. "Hello, McGillop? Look at your phone and confirm who you're talking to." She flicked a button to make it a group call.

There was a pause. "But that's not possible. I was just..."

"You were just talking to us," the 11th Doctor nodded. "We know; we're time travelers, figure it out. We need you to send the Gallifrey Falls painting to the Black Archive. Understood?"

"Understood, sir, ma'am. But why would I take it there?"

"Thank you, goodbye." She hung up, glancing at the 11th Doctor's expression. "Shut up." He grinned at that.

 **A/N: Important to remember that the other Doctor and the 10th Doctor have heard of who Adelaide is, even if they don't know her real name...**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _gossamermouse101: I love this episode too :) Still not as high as Midnight or Human Nature/Family of Blood on my list of favorites, but up there ;)_


	32. Her

**Her**

The three Time Lords stepped out into the 3D painting. The 11th Doctor had not wanted to leave Adelaide behind, but she'd reminded him that not only did everyone think she was a human companion, but Caroline and Clara would need protection when they made their own way through the painting. She watched what happened on the TARDIS screen, waiting until the men had sent a destroyed Dalek out into the Black Archive before she gestured for the other two to join her.

They heard the Doctors speaking as they stepped into the Black Archive. "Hello," the other Doctor said.

"I'm the Doctor," the 10th Doctor said.

"Sorry about the Dalek," the 11th Doctor shrugged.

"And the mess," Adelaide called, stepping in.

"And the showing off," Clara added.

Caroline was silent.

Adelaide stepped up to the 11th Doctor, Caroline moving to the 10th, and Clara to the other Doctor. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart," the 11th Doctor said, "what in the name of sanity are you doing?"

Kate straightened as she faced them. "The countdown can only be halted at my personal command. There's nothing you can do."

"Except make you both agree to halt it," the 10th Doctor said, eyeing the double Kates.

"Not even three of you."

The other Doctor frowned. "You're about to murder millions of people."

Kate nodded. "To save billions. How many times have you made that calculation?"

"Once," the 11th Doctor said, taking Adelaide's hand, knowing she'd made that calculation too. "Turned me into the man I am now. I'm not even sure who that is anymore."

"You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie," the 10th Doctor said. "Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong."

"And," the 11th Doctor, stepping away from Adelaide, pulled a chair, in unison with the 10th Doctor, to the end of the tables, "because I got it wrong, I'm going to make you get it right."

"How?" Kate asked as the Doctor's put their feet up and crossed their arms, grinning.

"Any second now, you're going to stop that countdown. Both of you, together."

"Then you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time."

The 10th Doctor nodded. "Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides."

"And the key to perfect negotiation?"

"Not knowing what side you're on!" the two men leaped up.

"So, for the next few hours, until we decide to let you out..."

"No one in this room will be able to remember if they're human..."

"Or Zygon."

"Whoops a daisy!" he jumped onto the table, all three men flashing their sonics at the memory devices on the ceiling. A bright light filled the room and, when it faded, all the humans/Zygons looked around in confusion...until they remembered the countdown.

"Cancel the detonation!" the Kates shouted, stopping the detonation.

The 11th Doctor grinned, jumping down from the table and throwing an arm around Adelaide's shoulders. "Peace in our time."

|C-S|

Clara wasn't really certain how it happened, but Caroline ended up standing alone watching the proceedings in the room. It seemed to be second nature for the 10th Doctor to want her near him, as neither of them really seemed to notice the way he looked for her when she wasn't there, the way he wanted to see her smile, but he was clearly too distracted now for even that.

It was very strange for Clara to work around the idea that, for Caroline, Adelaide was locked inside a fob watch. Since she was looking for it, she could see it in Caroline's pocket - it seemed almost impossible that Adelaide was in Caroline's pocket, but the proof was all there - but no one else seemed to notice.

She knew why that was. Adelaide had explained it; there was a perception filter specifically set for Time Lords or Time Lords turned human. If Adelaide or the 11th Doctor wanted to, they could focus hard enough to see it too, as apparently, the Master had done once, but there wasn't really a point. They knew it was there without needing to see it. There was no benefit for them to properly see it right now.

There were bits of Adelaide in Caroline that Clara could see, though Caroline was far quieter than her Time Lady counterpart. But Clara swore she could see their minds working in similar ways, though anything Caroline was guessing was based off a limited set of information since she didn't have access to everything the Time Lady knew. Still, she could see similar glints in their eyes - subtler in Caroline, but present. There was even something similar in how the two of them held their shoulders when they were utterly comfortable around someone - it had only happened recently for Adelaide around Clara and happened every moment Caroline was near the 10th Doctor.

It was clear that the two women were one in the same, just as the three different versions of the Doctor were the same, only at separate points in their lifetime.

Clara stepped away from the board of the Doctor's previous companions - even Caroline was there, standing with an older ginger woman who did look a bit like Adelaide - and walked up to Caroline.

"Hey," Clara said, smiling. "How are you doing?"

"Good," Caroline said. Her eyes, which did look remarkably like Adelaide's, even without the similar glints, flickered to the Time Lady. "You're both his companion, then?"

Clara nodded. "Adelaide's my aunt," she knew that Adelaide had been given her last name when introduced. "How did you and the Doctor meet?"

"He was investigating my office. I worked in the call center of Adipose Industries."

Clara's eyes widened. This woman did not seem like someone who'd be good at a call center. She looked uncomfortable just standing there with Clara, lightly chatting. "I remember them. The fat melting pill, yeah?"

"The fat was converted into baby Adipose. I waved them goodbye." Caroline smiled at the memory. "The Doctor and I just kept running into each other and then...he invited me to join him. And Donna..." her face fell.

"I'm sorry." Clara touched Caroline's shoulder. "I'm glad the Doctor has you."

Caroline said nothing.

Meanwhile, as the two women talked, the 10th Doctor stepped up to Adelaide. "Who are you?" She opened her mouth, but he shook his head. "I don't care about spoilers. You said centuries. And..." he frowned. "I can sense..."

She had been a bit surprised that the 10th or the other Doctor hadn't sensed she was a Time Lady before now, but she supposed they hadn't been looking for one. It was why the 10th Doctor had never sensed that there was a Time Lady drifting out of a fob watch right next to him. When he had begun to look, it had been for the Master and that man had completely overpowered anything in or around Caroline.

"Don't." She shook her head. "Please, Doctor, don't. Don't do that to Caroline."

That made him frown even more, studying her face. "Who are you?"

"Where are you?" she cut him off. She had her guesses, of course she did, about where they were in their timeline based on how the pair were acting around each other. But she wanted to know for sure. "Where have you just been?"

"San Helios." The 10th Doctor's cheeks went a bit pink and Adelaide knew why.

That kiss had taken her some time to get over. And the 11th Doctor too.

"Then you will learn who I am very soon." When he tried to speak, it was her turn to shake her head. "You know it would mess up the timelines if you knew too much, even if there's a high likelihood that you'll forget all of this once we all return to our own timelines." She sighed. "And, if that doesn't work to convince you, telling you would hurt Caroline."

She made to move away, but the 10th Doctor grabbed her arm. "Please. Tell me."

Adelaide glanced at the painting, at the destroyed Dalek, at where the other Doctor was sitting on his own. At the remnants of a war she'd run from instead of fought. A battlefield she'd never seen. "Victorious." She pulled her arm from his and walked away before he could ask anything else, going to the 11th Doctor.

The 10th Doctor watched her for a second longer before looking back to Caroline.

|C-S|

Clara was very cautious as she stepped up to the other Doctor, who had been sitting on his own the whole time, watching the rest of them. "Hello," she said, smiling.

The man looked up, smiling. "Hello."

Clara pulled out a chair of her own, sitting next to him. "I'm Clara. We haven't really met yet." She had been tempted to ask Caroline to join her, but the 10th Doctor didn't seem willing to let the woman leave him after he'd left his conversation with Adelaide, and, honestly, Clara didn't think she'd say much if she was there.

"I look forward to it." The other Doctor studied her face. "Is there a problem?"

"The Doctor," Clara sighed, "my...my Doctor, he's always talking about the day he did it." She couldn't say the same for Adelaide. Of course, the woman didn't talk about many parts of her personal history and the Doctor had never been willing to divulge what was Adelaide's right to share. "The day he wiped out the Time Lords to stop the war."

The other Doctor nodded. "One would."

"You wouldn't. Because you haven't done it yet. It's still in your future."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're very sure of yourself."

"He regrets it. I see it in his eyes every day. He'd do anything to change it. And so would she."

The other Doctor looked towards Adelaide, standing beside the 11th Doctor, the pair speaking quietly together. "Is she the Time Lady who ran?" Clara nodded. She wasn't surprised he'd figured it out. "The one who never saw the battlefield."

Clara wrung her hands in her skirt. "I think she regrets it too. She never says it, but I think she does. Whenever the Doctor talks about what he did, she gets this look in her eyes...she told me that she ran to stop the Time Lords using her to fight the Daleks. Is that true?"

He shrugged. "No one knows. No one even knows if she's real." In the small time he'd spent on Gallifrey before he found the Moment, he'd heard some troops cursing her after a particularly difficult battle.

The war would have already been over, they said, if the Betrayer hadn't run away.

"She didn't save anyone by running away," he mumbled. "But he did. How many worlds has his regret saved, do you think? How many worlds had she doomed? Look over there. Humans and Zygons working together in peace." He paused, looking back to Clara again. "How did you know?"

"Your eyes. You're so much younger."

The other Doctor nodded. "Then, all things considered, it's time I grew up. I've seen all I needed." He looked over Clara's shoulder at something, someone. "The moment has come. I'm ready."

Clara turned, looking where he had been but seeing nothing. "Who's there? Who were you talking to?" When she turned back around, the other Doctor had vanished.

|C-S|

When Clara told the Time Lords and Caroline that the other Doctor had vanished, that he hadn't used the Moment yet, the two men knew exactly where he'd gone.

Adelaide knew exactly who the other Doctor was now. The 11th Doctor had told her.

He was the man who'd stopped the war she hadn't fought. The war she'd refused to acknowledge as a real threat or, if she had, refused to care about.

The war she refused to admit she could have, and should have, worked to end before it had gotten terrible.

They brought the TARDISes to the small barn the other Doctor had taken the Moment to, stepping out to find the man standing with his back towards them before the box, looking at a large red button that had extended from the top of it. "I told you," Clara said. "He hasn't done it yet."

"Go away now, all of you," the other Doctor called. "This is for me,"

"These events should be time-locked," the 10th Doctor said, looking around. "We shouldn't even be here."

"So something let us through."

"Go back. Go back to your lives. Go and be the Doctor that I could never be. Make it worthwhile."

The 10th Doctor frowned at the man. "All those years, burying you in my memory."

The 11th Doctor nodded. "Pretending you didn't exist. Keeping you a secret, even from myself."

"Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else."

"You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right." The 11th Doctor took Adelaide's hand for a second before moving forward, joining the 10th Doctor as they stood around the button.

"But this time..." The 10th Doctor put his hand on the button, covering the other Doctor's.

"You don't have to do it alone." The 11th Doctor did the same.

And Adelaide watched. If she'd just waited, if she'd just not run when she did, she could have been here too. She could have been standing here, helping the Doctor press the button, ending the Time War without running away.

But she'd run. She had no right to this moment.

The other Doctor smiled at his future selves. "Thank you."

The 10th Doctor looked between his selves. "What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way."

"And it is done in the name of the many lives we are failing to save." He looked to Adelaide. "I'm sorry."

"You have to." He had to because she hadn't done anything. Because she knew she'd been in the wrong. She looked to the side, to Clara. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Clara..."

"He said he wiped out his own people," she said that quietly, so only Adelaide could hear, before getting loud again. "I just...I never pictured you doing it, that's all." The room darkened, a projection of the planet forming around them. "What's happening?"

"Nothing," the other Doctor called. "It's a projection."

Adelaide stiffened her expression, looking at the planet that surrounded them. The battlefield she'd never seen, that she'd never allowed herself to see.

She'd left at the beginning of the war. She had to remind herself of that. The war had been terrible, but it hadn't been this yet, it hadn't been this bad. She'd had no way to know it would get this bad, this dangerous.

Except she had. Even if she'd never personally seen the carnage of war, she knew how it logically progressed. She knew what would happen if she left without trying.

And she'd left all the same.

There were people around them, fighting, screaming, dying.

"These are the people you're going to burn?" She looked to Adelaide. "The ones you abandoned?" Clara may not have meant for the words to sting, but they did regardless.

The 10th Doctor shook his head, speaking quietly. "There isn't anything we can do."

"He's right. There isn't another way. There never was. Either I destroy my own people or let the universe burn."

A choice. Two buttons.

Adelaide hadn't been able to face it.

Clara shook her head at the Doctors. "Look at you. The three of you. The warrior," she looked at the other Doctor, "the hero," the 10th, "and you," the 11th.

"And what am I?"

"Have you really forgotten?"

"Yes. Maybe, yes."

"We've got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero."

"Then what do I do?"

There were tears in Clara's eyes. "What you've always done. Be a doctor. You told me the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?"

The projection around them stilled. "Never cruel or cowardly," the 10th Doctor said.

"Never give up, never give in."

The projection faded, returning them to the barn.

The 10th Doctor's eyes widened. "You're not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?"

The 11th Doctor shrugged. "We change history all the time. I'm suggesting far worse."

"What, exactly?"

"Gentlemen, I have had four hundred years to think about this. I've changed my mind." The 11th Doctor, stepping back, soniced the Moment back closed, putting his other arm around Adelaide.

"There's still a billion billion Daleks up there attacking," the other Doctor reminded him, making Adelaide flinch.

"Yeah, there is. There is."

Caroline gasped, stepping up to the 10th Doctor. "But there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know."

The 11th Doctor pointed at her. "Because if they did, they'd probably send for reinforcements."

"What?" Clara asked. "What don't they know?"

"There are three of him," Caroline said, smiling.

"Oh! Oh, yes, that is good!" the other Doctor cheered. "That is brilliant!"

The 10th Doctor smiled too. "Oh, oh, oh, I'm getting that too! That is brilliant!"

"I've been thinking about it for centuries!" he smiled at Adelaide. "To right the mistakes."

The other Doctor laughed. "She didn't just show me any old future, she showed me exactly the future I needed to see."

"Eh?" the 11th Doctor frowned. "Who did?"

"Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could kiss you," the other Doctor blew a kiss in the direction of the crates.

The 10th Doctor and Caroline paused, looking at him. "Sorry, did you just say Bad Wolf?"

Adelaide eyed the men. "What's the plan, exactly?"

"The Dalek fleets are surrounding Gallifrey, firing on it constantly."

"The Sky Trench is holding, but what if the whole planet just disappeared?" the 10th Doctor nodded, drawn back into focus.

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Tiny bit of an ask."

"The Daleks would be firing on each other," Adelaide said. "They'd destroy themselves in their own crossfire."

The other Doctor nodded. "Gallifrey would be gone, the Daleks would be destroyed, and it would look to the rest of the universe as if they'd annihilated each other."

"But where would Gallifrey be?" Clara asked.

"Frozen. Frozen in an instant of time, safe and hidden away."

"Exactly..."

"Like a painting."

|C-S|

Androgar ran to the notification of a new message in the war room. "Another one," he called.

The General frowned at the projection; the message had changed from 'No More' to 'Gallifrey Stands'. "Are you sure the message is from him?"

"Oh, yes."

"Why would he do that? What's the mad fool talking about now?"

A screen appeared in the air above them, revealing the 11th Doctor and Adelaide. "Hello, hello, Gallifrey High Command, this is the Doctor speaking, and Adelaide."

The General's eyes widened, but that was nothing compared to what happened when the next screen appeared, containing the 10th Doctor and Caroline. "Hello! Also the Doctor, and this is Caroline, she's lovely. Can you hear me?"

"Adelaide?" the man gasped, looking at Caroline, knowing instantly who the woman was, but thankfully the other Doctor and Clara arrived at that moment and no one noticed the name directed at a woman who it shouldn't quite be.

"Also the Doctor, standing ready."

"Dear God," the man gasped. "All my worst nightmares at once."

"General," the 10th Doctor said, drawing his attention, "we have a plan."

"We should point at this moment," the 11th Doctor added, "it is a fairly terrible plan..."

"And almost certainly won't work."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "I was fine with terrible."

The 10th Doctor shrugged. "Sorry, just thinking out loud."

"We're flying our three TARDISes into your lower atmosphere."

The 10th Doctor nodded, pointing out various things that Caroline needed to do to help pilot. "We're positioned at equidistant intervals around the globe." He grinned at her. "Equidistant. So grown up."

The other Doctor stepped into view. "We're just about ready to do it."

The General shook his head. "Ready to do what?"

"We're going to freeze Gallifrey."

The man frowned. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Using our TARDISes, we're going to freeze Gallifrey in a single moment in time."

"You know, like those stasis cubes? A single moment in time, held in a parallel pocket universe."

"Except we're going to do it to a whole planet."

"And all the people on it," Adelaide added.

"What?" the General shook his head again. "Even if that were possible – which it isn't – why would you do such a thing?"

"Because the alternative is burning," Adelaide said, making eye contact with the General. "And we've seen that."

The 11th Doctor nodded. "And we never want to see it again."

"We'd be lost in another universe, frozen in a single moment. We'd have nothing."

"You would have hope. And right now, that is exactly what you don't have,"

"It's delusional," the General scoffed. "The calculations alone would take hundreds of years."

"Oh, hundreds and hundreds," the 11th Doctor agreed.

"But don't worry," the 10th Doctor grinned, "I started a very long time ago."

Another screen appeared, this one holding the Doctor's first regeneration. "Calling the War Council of Gallifrey. This is the Doctor."

"You might say I've been doing this all my lives."

The Doctor's other regenerations started to appear in the air, soon twelve images appearing. "I didn't know when I was well off," the General sighed, looking at all the men. "All twelve of them!"

"No, sir!" Androgar called. "All thirteen!"

A thirteenth image appeared, the man inside glaring at them.

"Sir! The Daleks know that something is happening. They're increasing their firepower."

The General looked back up at the men and Adelaide, the two Time Lords who had held the fate of the war in their hands. Who always had and always would. The Warrior and Protector, Betrayer and Savior. "Do it, Doctor, Adelaide. Just do it."

"Okay," the 11th Doctor nodded. "Gentlemen, we're ready. Geronimo!" He and Adelaide pulled levers.

"Allons-y!" the 10th called, flipping his own, grinning at Caroline.

"Oh, for God's sake," the Warrior sighed, shaking his head. "Gallifrey stands!"

|C-S|

The three Doctors stood together, looking at the painting 'Gallifrey Falls' with tea in hand. Adelaide stood beside the 11th Doctor, not willing to pretend anymore. She was as responsible as any of these men for what had happened. Caroline and Clara sat behind them, Caroline frowning at Adelaide.

"I don't suppose we'll know if we actually succeeded," the other Doctor said, sighing. "But at worst, we failed doing the right thing, as opposed to succeeding in doing the wrong."

"Attempted to correct some mistakes," Adelaide said because what she'd done had been a mistake, she knew that. She'd abandoned their people, their planet, the universe, without thinking of how the war would progress. She may not have liked this new development anymore, but she knew it wasn't as much of a mistake as what she had originally done.

After all, Adelaide had never loved Gallifrey as much as the Doctor. But she didn't have to in order to try to do the right thing.

The 10th Doctor studied the painting. "What is it actually called?"

"Well, there's some debate," the 11th Doctor shrugged. "Either No More or Gallifrey Falls."

"Not very encouraging."

"How did it get here?" Caroline called, making the group turn to look at her. "It's Time Lord art in a human museum."

The 11th Doctor, giving her a small smile, shrugged. "No idea."

The 10th Doctor grinned at her. "There's always something we don't know, isn't there? Love the not knowing."

The other Doctor laughed. "One should certainly hope so." He turned, facing them all. "Well, gentlemen, lady," he nodded at Adelaide, "it has been an honor and a privilege."

The 10th Doctor nodded. "Likewise."

"Doctor."

Adelaide just smiled at him. She knew what this man had thought of her, what Clara had told him. "Thank you."

The other Doctor turned to Caroline and Clara, looking to Caroline first for a second before taking her hands. "You are quite a brilliant woman, Caroline." He knew who she was, even if the 10th Doctor didn't. Caroline smiled at him, though she didn't say anything. "You deserve love." He nearly smiled at her before turning to Clara. "If I grow to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed."

Clara laughed. "That's right. Aim high."

The man stepped back, taking them all in. "I won't remember this, will I?"

"The time streams are out of sync," the 11th Doctor shook his head. "You can't retain it, no."

The other Doctor nodded. "So I won't remember that I tried to save Gallifrey rather than burn it. I'll have to live with that." He straightened his back. "But for now, for this moment, I am the Doctor again. Thank you." He turned to look at the three TARDISes. "Which one is mine? Ha!" with a final nod, he stepped into the most worn TARDIS and left them.

The 10th Doctor turned to them as well, Caroline standing to be beside him. "We won't remember either," he took Adelaide's hand, "so you might as well tell us."

"Tell you what?"

"You're a Time Lady," Caroline said, shocking everyone but Adelaide and Clara.

Adelaide nodded. "Yes."

The 10th Doctor's eyes widened. "You're the one who ran. The..."

"Betrayer, yes. I ran and hid when the war was new." She looked to Caroline. "You are wonderful, Caroline, please know that. I know you don't believe it, that you don't know why he lets you travel with him, that you don't think you deserve it," the 10th, even the 11th, Doctor looked shocked at that, "but please, believe me when I say that you are not worthless. You mean something to the universe. You will never be forgotten."

Caroline nodded and, without a word, stepped back and walked to her and the 10th Doctor's TARDIS. The man watched her go, watched the TARDIS door close, before looking at Adelaide again. "Thank you." The Time Lady nodded and the Doctor stepped into his own TARDIS, the pair of them vanishing a second later.

Clara eyed the Doctor and Adelaide. "Need a moment alone with your painting?"

"How did you know?"

"I always know." Clara nodded at them, walking back to their TARDIS. "Oh, by the way, once you're done, there was an old man looking for you. I think it was the curator." She left them alone, and the Doctor turned to Adelaide.

"Did Caroline really wonder what?"

Adelaide nodded. "She was a quiet human, and you were...the Doctor. Every companion has wondered it sometimes, I should think. There's no reason Caroline would be any different." She looked at the painting again. "The Master and I left Gallifrey before it turned into hell. Before the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been-King with his army of Mean-Whiles and Never-Weres..."

"You were given an impossible choice," he told her, making her look at him again. "I was given an impossible choice. If you hadn't run, you wouldn't have been able to live with yourself. If you'd done nothing, you wouldn't have been able to live with yourself. And the same was true for me. We just chose different things. There was no right choice. There was no right thing. There was no way to win."

Adelaide nodded, pressing her head to the Doctor's. They stood there for a second longer, holding hands, before the painting, before Adelaide spoke. "May I kiss you, Doctor?"

He answered by putting a hand on the back of her head, kissing her softly, savoring it.

And she did too because she'd wanted this for longer than she wanted to admit.

Just this.

This was enough.

They broke apart without a word, looking to the side at the painting, considering it. "I could be a curator," the Doctor commented, wanting to make Adelaide smile again. "I'd be great at curating. I'd be the Great Curator. I could retire and do that. I could retire and be the curator of this place."

"You know," a man said from behind them, making them step apart as they turned, "I really think you might." An older man, who the Doctor recognized, smiled at them.

"I never forget a face," the Doctor said, smiling.

"I know you don't," the Curator nodded. "And in years to come, you might find yourself revisiting a few. But just the old favorites, eh?" He laughed as the Doctor winked at him. "You were curious about this painting, I think. I acquired it in remarkable circumstances. What do you make of the title?"

"Which title? There's two. 'No More' or 'Gallifrey Falls'."

"Oh, you see, that's where everybody's wrong. It's all one title. 'Gallifrey Falls No More'." The Time Lords eyes widened. "Now, what would you think that means, eh?"

"That Gallifrey didn't fall." The Doctor grinned.

Adelaide nodded. "It worked, then? It's still out there?"

The Curator shrugged. "I'm only a humble curator. I'm sure I wouldn't know."

"Then where is it?"

"Where is it indeed? Lost. Shush. Perhaps. Things do get lost, you know. And now you must excuse me. Oh, you have a lot to do, both of you."

"Do we?"

"Mmm."

"Is that what we're supposed to do now?" the Doctor asked. "Go looking for Gallifrey?"

"Oh, it's entirely up to you. Your choice, eh? I can only tell you what I would do if I were you." He laughed to himself. "Oh, if I were you. Oh, perhaps I was you, of course. Or perhaps you are me." He held out his hand for them both to shake. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," the Doctor said.

Adelaide nodded. "Very much."

"Or perhaps it doesn't matter either way. Who knows, eh? Who knows?" the man walked off humming to himself, leaving the Time Lords together.

The Time Lords Victorious.

 **A/N: I just love the image of Caroline revealing she's figured out that Adelaide's a Time Lady - both men's mouths drop open, the room goes silent, Clara fights laughter, Adelaide fights a proud grin.**

 **Hopefully, I'll be able to find more ways for Caroline to return in the future. I will always love her, regardless of her being a fob watched Adelaide or not :)**

 **Only two more chapters of this story, and then we will begin the sixth installment of _The Crossed Stars._..**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _gossamermouse101: I completely agree. I can still remember how ecstatic I was when I realized that was what the 50th was going to include :)_


	33. The Bell Tolls

**The Bell Tolls**

"Once, there was a planet, much like any other, and unimportant. This planet sent the Universe a message. A bell tolling among the stars, ringing out to all the dark corners of creation. And everybody came to see. Although no one understood the message, everyone who heard it found themselves afraid. Except one man and woman. The two who stayed for Christmas."

|C-S|

As the Doctor hurried through the dark halls of a spacesuit, Adelaide stood in the TARDIS waiting to help him. She'd been here before, right at the start of her regeneration, but it had been a very different her.

That last time, Adelaide had been under the false impression that a regeneration had fixed all of her problems. That, though her previous regeneration had been in love with the Doctor, she wasn't so foolish anymore. That though she had felt similar things, though she had wanted similar things, she didn't really want them.

Everything was different now.

She had, using the Cyberman head the Doctor had christened 'Handles', a live audio feed of where the Doctor was.

"I bring proof of courage and comradeship!" he called to the ship Adelaide had teleported him down onto. "What is this ship and why are you here? Identify yourselves by species and planet of origin."

His demand was answered in perhaps the worst way possible, given what he was holding - a Dalek eye-stalk. "Exterminate!"

"Adelaide!" the Doctor shouted, but the Time Lady had already started to work to teleport him back.

"Working on it!"

She heard him running, with the Daleks starting to shoot at him. "Adelaide, help!"

"Patience!" she managed to flick the final switch just at the moment that the Doctor had enough momentum to keep running, almost colliding with her when he appeared. She only just managed to catch him before they both fell. He smiled at her before he stepped back, glaring at Handles, as they'd been using the head to pick the ships the Doctor had been going to.

"Every ship I go on, they just shoot me. Handles, I said, 'put me on a ship'. I didn't say 'put me on a Dalek ship'."

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "He's a computer. He's just cycling through the nearby ships."

"I was holding a broken bit of Dalek!" he hit Handles with the Dalek eyestalk.

"You didn't directly specify a preference."

He pouted at her. "Are you siding with Handles over me?"

"He didn't really have many options." Adelaide stepped back up to the console, bringing up the list of ships surrounding them. "Daleks, Sontarans, Terileptils, Slitheen."

The Doctor leaned against the console next to her. "And they're not even fighting, they're just parked. Why?"

"The message was received throughout the Universe," Handles said.

He stepped back, sighing. "Yes, yes, the message, the message," he flicked something playing the short 3 note message. "Even we can't translate it. I mean, why is everyone here if they don't understand it?"

"We're here," Adelaide told him.

"Well, you know, I'm OCD and you like a mystery. What's their excuse? What does this message mean?"

Adelaide's phone rang, making her very glad since neither she nor the Doctor had patched the TARDIS phone back to the console. "Handles, remind us later to patch the telephone back through the console unit."

"When?"

"When you think we've forgotten," the Doctor called.

"When?"

"Pick a random number," Adelaide pulled out her phone as she spoke, "express that number as a quantity of minutes and when that time has elapsed, remind us to patch the telephone back to the console unit."

"Affirmative."

The Doctor made a face. "How those Cyber-evenings must fly."

"Hello, this is Adelaide."

"Emergency." It was Clara, sounding incredibly panicked. "Can the Doctor pretend to be my boyfriend?"

"Did you create an imaginary boyfriend?"

Clara paused, seeming a bit shocked that Adelaide had guessed it. "Yes. And I said he'd be coming to Christmas dinner."

"One moment." Adelaide lowered the phone, turning to the Doctor. "Doctor, you're going to pretend to be Clara's boyfriend."

He looked up. "Why?"

"She invented one."

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah, I did that once and there's no easy way to get rid of an android."

Adelaide sighed. "Not an android, Doctor. An imaginary boyfriend she said would be coming to Christmas dinner."

The scanner picked up a new ship, making the Doctor dart around the console to pilot them there. Adelaide started to work on identifying it with one hand, which would take a bit too long for the Doctor. "We'll be right back Clara." She hung up the phone, as she needed two hands to control of the console.

The Doctor hurried past Adelaide, as they'd agreed that she'd be in the TARDIS in order to rescue him if necessary, and grabbed Handles as he walked. Adelaide moved to tell him that was a bad idea as she identified the ship, but he'd already closed the door behind him.

She just waited in the TARDIS for about twenty seconds before the Doctor, followed by the sound of Cybermen shooting him, ran back into the TARDIS. "Cybermen!"

"Close the door," Adelaide said, her phone ringing again. "Yes, Clara?"

"I need you!" Clara sounded even more panicked. "I'm cooking Christmas dinner!"

"Neither of us can help you cook, Clara."

"I can cook!" the Doctor called, dashing around the console.

"You can cook eggs, Doctor." She stepped out of the Doctor's way. "We'll be there, Clara."

|C-S|

Adelaide opened the TARDIS doors for Clara. The human ran in, not looking at Adelaide yet. "I so need yo-" her eyes widened and she spun around, thankful that Adelaide was not also completely nude.

"Clara!" the Doctor cheered, stepping forward, but Adelaide stepped forward and moved Clara slightly to the side. "What's wrong?"

"You're naked," Clara said, shivering slightly.

"Yes, I am naked. I wondered if you'd notice."

"Adelaide, why is he naked?"

Adelaide shook her head. "Because we're going to church and he didn't want to change."

There was a small zap. "Better?"

Clara spun, seeing the Doctor appear to be dressed again. "Oh, that was quick."

"Hologram clothes projected directly onto your visual cortex."

Clara made a face. "So you're still naked underneath?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Everybody's naked underneath."

That just made Clara grimace. "Don't say things like that." She shook her head. "It's Christmas. Come and meet my family." She took them by the hands and pulled them across the small courtyard and up to where Clara lived.

Inside were two women and a man who all looked a bit shocked to see the new arrivals. "Hello," Clara said, "so, er...here he is!"

The Doctor rushed forward, moving to shake all of their hands – though Clara's grandmother received air kisses. "Hello, the Oswalds. Hello! Merry Christmas. Hello, hello." He grinned. "Hello, handsome. Anyone for Twister?"

Clara glanced at Adelaide before looking back at her family. "So, this is the Doctor. My...boyfriend. And Adelaide, his roommate. We work together. Just recently." Clara's family refused to look at the Doctor. "Isn't anyone going to say hello?"

Clara's grandmother giggled. "Hello."

"Excuse us," Adelaide said, pulling the Doctor and Clara back and away from the family. "Doctor, I don't believe they can see your clothes."

Clara's eyes widened. "No one except us can see his clothes?"

"Correct."

The Doctor nodded. "I'm starting to think it may be causing tension."

"Are we playing Twister now?" Clara's grandmother called.

Clara shoved the Doctor towards the closest room. "Get in the kitchen."

"Sorry," Adelaide said, smiling at Clara's family. "He's Swedish." She closed the kitchen door behind them all, the Doctor already peering into the oven at the turkey Clara had been attempting to cook.

"Oh, that's never going to work, is it?" the Doctor shook his head.

"What's wrong? Do you think it's not done yet?"

He shrugged. "I think a decent vet would give it an even chance."

"Okay. Well, use an app."

The Doctor straightened, frowning at her. "An app."

"On your screwdriver or pen." She gestured between the two of them. "App it."

The Doctor looked rather offended by the concept. "Most certainly not. They don't do turkey. Nothing does turkey. You'd need a time machine." Both women looked at him. "What?"

|C-S|

The Doctor, in the end, was not that happy about them using the TARDIS to cook the turkey. "You can't keep using the TARDIS like this," he groaned, holding the door open for Clara and Adelaide.

"Like what?"

"Missed birthdays, restaurant bookings. And please, just learn how to use iPlayer."

"But missing birthdays and restaurant bookings is rude," Clara said, smirking at Adelaide as the Time Lady guided them all beneath the console. "And I can't be rude, because then Adelaide won't like me, and I..."

"Shut up!" the Doctor snapped, leaving the two women to smile at each other.

"Ooo, vortex cooking?" Clara said as the Doctor opened one of the panels at the base of the lower level of the console.

The Doctor nodded. "Yep, exposure to the time winds. It'll either come up a treat or just possibly lay some eggs."

"Information available!" Handles called from above them, the Doctor clapping his hands and hurrying up.

Clara glanced at Adelaide. "What's that?"

"A bit of Cyberman the Doctor found at the Maldovar market." The two walked back up to the console, Adelaide joining the Doctor in piloting them back to the planet sending out the mysterious message.

"Planet identified from analysis of message."

"Right, cool. Go on then. Okay, tell us, what is the planet? Go on."

"Processing official designation. Processing."

The Doctor rolled his eyes, sighing. "Okay, in your own time, dear. Don't rush."

Clara looked at the monitor and the planet with the ships surrounding it. "So why haven't you just gone down there and had a look?"

"It's shielded," Adelaide said. "Even the TARDIS can't break through without quite a bit of effort."

"Gallifrey," Handles said, making the Time Lords freeze and look at it.

"What did you say?" the Doctor frowned.

"Gallifrey."

"What are you talking about? Gallifrey? What do you mean?"

"Confirmed," Handles said. "Planet designation: Gallifrey."

The Doctor grabbed Handles, turning him to the scanner so that the head could see. "You see that? Gallifrey is our home." Adelaide raised her eyebrows at that but said nothing. "We know it when we see it. That is not Gallifrey."

Clara eyed him. "Doctor, are you okay?"

"It's not Gallifrey. Gallifrey is gone."

"Unless..." Clara looked between them, "unless you saved it. You thought you might have."

The Doctor shook his head. "Even if it survived, it's gone from this universe. That" he pointed at the screen "is not our home. It can't be."

They were interrupted by something that vaguely sounded like a fog horn from outside. Clara jumped. "What's that?"

The monitor switched, showing the new ship. "Papal Mainframe," Adelaide said.

The Doctor nodded, moving to the TARDIS doors and opening them. "It's like a great big flying church. The first ship to arrive. They are the ones who shielded the planet. They can get us down there." He bowed to the large holographic face held in the middle of the ship.

"A friend of yours?" Clara asked.

"Tasha Lem," Adelaide explained, "the Mother Superious." The hologram beckoned to them. "And she's inviting us aboard."

"Why?"

"Because we asked her," the Doctor said before he glanced back at Adelaide. "Because Adelaide asked her, nicely." He handed Clara a pill. "Swallow this."

"What is it?"

"Your hologram projector." The Doctor smirked. "You can't go to church with your clothes on."

|C-S|

Clara seemed very uncomfortable as they walked down the main walkway in the Papal Mainframe, where Tasha was waiting for them at the end. "I don't feel like I'm wearing anything," she whispered.

The Doctor grinned. "I know. Relaxing, isn't it?"

Clara looked around, as they were surrounded by rows of military personnel. "What is this place?"

"The Church of the Papal Mainframe is a security hub of the known universe," Adelaide said.

"A security church."

The Doctor nodded. "Yep. Keeping you safe in this world and the next." They reached Tasha. "We venerate the exaltation of the Mother Superious." He bowed low, with Adelaide gesturing to Clara for the woman to curtsey.

The man next to Tasha nodded at them. "Welcome to the Church of the Papal Mainframe. Your nudity is appreciated."

Tasha smirked at the Doctor, having met the man in his last body. "Hey, babes." Adelaide raised her eyebrows at that.

"Loving the frock," the Doctor grinned.

"Is that a new body? Give us a twirl."

"Tash, this old thing? Please, I've been rocking it for centuries." The Doctor spun in place.

Tasha nodded. "Nice though. Tight." She looked to Adelaide next. "It's been some time, Adelaide. Have you finally aged?" Adelaide had met the Papal Mainframe in her third incarnation, when she'd also been ginger.

"Sadly, two bodies in between that one and now."

Tasha smirked. "Didn't know that you and the Doctor knew each other."

"A recent arrangement. We kept missing each other before. I believe we sent you a message?" Tasha nodded.

The Doctor put a hand on Clara's shoulder. "Clara, this is Tasha Lem, the Head of the Church of the Papal Mainframe. Tash, this is our associate, Miss Clara Oswald."

"We'll go to my chapel." Tasha moved to address the room. "All honors in place, no sacrifices required." She stepped off the platform, leading the three of them into a side corridor.

"It was Tasha who shielded the planet," the Doctor told Clara. "But you could sneak us down there, couldn't you, Tash?"

"I would have conditions. I have confidential matters to discuss with the Doctor and, now, Adelaide." Tasha turned to Clara. "Would you excuse us?"

The Doctor frowned. "Anything you have to say to us, you can say in front of Clara. Well, quite a lot of it. Probably about half. Maybe a smidge under." He turned to Clara. "Actually, Clara, would you mind waiting out here, please?"

Clara laughed. "No worries. Good luck keeping a hand on the Doctor," she looked at Adelaide as the doors opened. "Boss of the psycho space nuns?"

"Keyword: nuns," Adelaide said, following the Doctor and Tasha into the room.

The Doctor stopped about halfway into the room. "That altar looks like a bed."

Tasha smirked again, looking at the Time Lords. "That bed looks like an altar."

The Doctor took a seat on it, Adelaide standing next to him, as Tasha moved to pour herself a drink since Adelaide had shaken her head when the woman had moved to get glasses for the Time Lords. The Doctor had long established that he would just spit out strange liquids when he didn't like them. Then the woman pressed something on her headboard, making the 3 tone message play. "That message is transmitting through all of space and time. What did it make you feel?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Feel?"

"Every sentient being in the Universe who detected that signal felt something. Something overpowering."

"What?" Adelaide asked.

"Fear. Pure, unadulterated dread."

The Doctor nodded. "Right. What's the signal? Where's it coming from?"

"It's a settlement. Human colony, level two. A farm, basically."

"Right. Anyone been for a look?"

"Any one ship lands, the rest will follow. There will be bloodshed." Tasha nodded. "Fortunately, we got here first, shielded the planet. We maintain the truce by blocking all of them."

He frowned. "Daleks, Cybermen, one of that lot, could break through your defenses."

Tasha shrugged. "Perhaps. But they're afraid, remember? Nobody wants to go first."

Both Time Lords smiled. "We do."

Tasha nodded. "I was counting on it."

The doors burst open and Clara ran inside, clearly terrified...and then the human blinked, settling.

"Are you okay?" the Doctor called.

"Fine." Clara nodded. "Yeah, fine. Sorry."

Tasha raised her eyebrows at the human. "Right." She brought them to the back of the room and the small set of booths. "This is my personal teleport. I can put you down just outside the town. Find the source of the message and report back to me in one hour. And on your life, Doctor, you will cause no trouble down there."

"Why didn't you make Adelaide promise?" he pouted.

"Because Adelaide already knows how she must behave without me telling her. You, however, require the reminder."

"When do I..." he paused, pointing between the three women. "Don't answer that." He stepped into the box, pulling the curtain closed, but Tasha just pulled it open again and held out her hand. "What?"

"I'm not an idiot," Tasha reminded him. "Everyone in this church is trained to see straight through holograms."

Clara sighed. "Ah, great."

"Give now. You are taking no technology of any kind down there."

The Doctor frowned. "What can I do with a key?" he closed the curtain again, but Tasha just opened it again.

"You could summon your TARDIS."

"The TARDIS doesn't work by remote." Tasha still held out her hand. "Fine. If it makes you feel any better, there we are." He handed her the key since Adelaide hadn't taken hers, as there hadn't been an easy place to keep it in only holographic clothing.

Clara and Adelaide stepped into the other booth, Tasha going to the controls. "Remember," the woman called. "I want you back in one hour."

|C-S|

The trio appeared on the planet below, instantly realizing that it was extremely cold and slightly dark. Normally, the Time Lords were good in extreme temperatures, but it did help when they were wearing more than holograms.

Clara wrapped her arms around herself for warmth. "Oh, cold. Very cold."

"Okay, don't worry." The Doctor rubbed his arms too. "There's a heat loss filter in your hologram shell. It'll kick in, just give it a moment." He spotted the village in the distance. "So, sweet little town covered in snow, half the universe in terror. Why? Why?"

Clara paused, seeing something in the snow. "Oh my God!"

"What?"

Clara moved towards it. "There's something under the snow. It's..."

Adelaide grabbed the Doctor's shoulder to keep him from wandering off without Clara. "What is it?"

"It's...cold." Clara bent down, touching it, before straightening. "It's stone. It's just stone. It's only a statue."

The Time Lords froze, turning back to Clara. "Clara, step away from it!" Clara moved to come towards them, but the hand had grabbed her ankle. "Clara, keep looking at it."

Adelaide rushed forward, grabbing Clara's shoulders. "Don't even blink, Clara."

"What is it?"

"There is a Weeping Angel under the snow," Adelaide said. "Appears to be a statue, isn't. Pull your foot out."

Clara tried. "Only if I get it out of my shoe."

"Clara, you're not wearing a shoe."

The human nodded. "Good point."

"Pull hard. One, two, three!" She pulled Clara backward and the human broke free, both of them caught from behind by the Doctor.

More Angels started to emerge from the snow drifts, climbing out. "They're climbing out of the snow. Oh, God!"

The trio formed a small circle, rotating constantly in an attempt to keep all of the Angels in sight. "Keep looking at them. At all of them."

"Why?"

"Quantum locked lifeform. It can only move if it's unobserved."

"What are they doing here?"

"Same as everybody else," the Doctor reasoned. "Must've got past Tasha's shield." They were completely surrounded by Angels, their vision getting worse by the second. "Keep looking!"

"I can't!" Clara said. "I can't see. The snow's in my eyes."

"I just need to bring the TARDIS down."

Clara shook her head. "You can't fly it remotely."

"No, but it can home in on the key."

"But she took your key!"

"She took one of them!" Adelaide said, the Doctor pulling off his wig and holding up the key inside. A second later, the TARDIS appeared around them.

Clara looked relieved for a second before she saw what the Doctor looked like. She pointed at him, as the Doctor was completely bald with a wig in hand. The Time Lord grinned. "The old key in the quaff routine. Classic!" he put the wig on top of Handles, moving to the console with Adelaide. "Okay, homing in on the mysterious message." He pointed at Adelaide. "Ooo yes, I like that. The mysterious message. A mystery! You like mysteries!"

"You've shaved your head?" Clara asked the Time Lord.

"Yep. Clever plan to get us past the shield."

Clara looked at Adelaide. "He got bored one night, didn't he?"

"He wanted to know the shape of his head."

Clara laughed. "Is that what happened to your eyebrows?"

"No, they're just delicate."

Adelaide flicked a few things on the console. "Near the signal source. And setting it on silent, because, Doctor, TARDISes can do that."

Clara shook her head at the Doctor. "Put it back on."

"Why?"

"Your ears are like rocket fins."

He sighed. "I know."

|C-S|

The trio stepped out of the TARDIS into the small village they'd landed in the middle of. It was still night, but it was much brighter here than where they'd originally come down. "Oh, it's good to be wearing clothes again," Clara said, smiling as she looked around. "That's so much better, don't you think?"

The Doctor scanned the area around them. "Now, what do we make of this place? It's two o'clock in the afternoon." He shrugged. "Must be very short days here."

Adelaide followed her own sonic's reading. "The message is coming from the tower," she pointed at it.

Two people, a man and woman, walked arm in arm towards the trio. "Hello!" the Doctor called, rushing over. "Hello, there. Right," he whispered to Adelaide and Clara, taking Adelaide's hand, "we're a couple of visitors from the next town. My name's probably Hank or Rock, something like that."

"Or Daisy?" Clara suggested, smirking.

"Shut up." He grinned at the couple. "Hello, good to meet you. Nice snow."

The man nodded, shaking their hands. "Most pleasant to meet you too."

"Most pleasant," the woman agreed. "Most pleasant."

"I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord said. "I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. I stole a time machine and ran away and I've been flouting the principal law of my own people ever since." He covered his mouth. "That wasn't quite what I meant to say!"

"I'm Adelaide," she said, unable to stop herself. "I'm a Time Lady from Gallifrey. I was given permission to explore the universe and then abandoned my own people by turning myself human when they asked me to use the armies of the universe to fight their war for them." She covered her mouth too.

"I'm an English teacher from planet Earth," Clara said, "and I've run off with a man and woman from space because I really fancy..." Clara cut herself off too.

The woman laughed. "I think, perhaps, you should stop talking till you get used to it."

"Used to what?" the Doctor asked.

The woman looked to Clara. "What did you say your name was?"

"Bubbly personality masking bossy control freak!"

"I'm wearing a wig!" the Doctor pointed to his head, and then covered his mouth again.

"It's a truth field," Adelaide said, lowering her hands.

The Doctor grinned. "Oh, that is so quaint. I haven't seen a truth field in years. I'm wearing a wig!"

"No one can lie in this town." The man pointed towards the tower. "Especially this close to the tower." With a final nod, the couple moved on past the trio.

"Doesn't that make life a bit difficult?" The Doctor called after them.

"Not at all," the woman said, at the same time the man said, "yes."

"This town, what's it called?"

"It's Christmas!"

The Doctor glanced at his sonic. "It's July."

"No, the town. The town is Christmas. That's what it's called."

The man waved at them. "Be happy here. Be well!" They walked off.

Clara frowned. "How can a town be called Christmas?"

"I don't know," the Doctor shrugged. "How can an island be called Easter? Maybe it's just nice here. I almost hate to find out what's wrong."

He and Adelaide hurried to the tower, Clara following them, with the Doctor using his sonic to unlock the door. It was extremely dark inside, but the Time Lords instantly started using their sonics as torches. They didn't get far before the Doctor spotted something in the back wall of the room. "There you are," he whispered. "What took you so long?"

"What's wrong?" Clara frowned at the sight. "It's only a crack in the wall."

"Of course it wasn't that simple," Adelaide sighed, the two Time Lords stepping closer to the crack.

"What is it?"

"A split in the skin of reality." The Doctor ran a finger along the crack. "A tiny sliver of the 26th of June, 2010. The day the universe blew up."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "Missed that."

"The Doctor rebooted it."

She nodded. "That's good."

"Well, it was my TARDIS that blew it up in the first place." The Doctor shrugged. "I felt a degree of responsibility. But the scar tissue remains. A structural weakness in the whole universe." He stepped back from the crack, taking Adelaide's hand again. "And someone's trying to get through it from outside our universe, from somewhere else." He nodded. "Of course, of course, it makes sense."

Clara raised her eyebrows. "It does?"

"If you were trying to break through a wall, you'd choose the weakest spot. If you were trying to break into this Universe, you'd choose this crack, because..." his eyes widened. "No...if you were trying to break back into this universe."

Adelaide held up Handles, whom she'd been carrying. "Why did you say Gallifrey?"

"Analysis of message composition indicates Gallifreyan origin, according to TARDIS databanks."

Clara eyed the Time Lords, who were having very different reactions to this news. "You said Gallifrey was gone."

"No. I said it was in another Universe," the Doctor corrected. "The message is coming through here. The truth field is too, at a guess." He looked at Adelaide. "If it's the Time Lords...if it's the Time Lords." He pulled a token from his pocket. "Seal of the High Council of Gallifrey. Nicked it off the Master in the Death Zone. There is an algorithm imprinted in the atomic structure. Use it to decode the message." He put the seal into Handles' forehead.

"Message decoding. Message analysis proceeding. Information available. The message is a request for information."

"It's a question," the Doctor groaned. "Why can't you just say it's a question?"

"It is being projected through all of time and space on a repeating cycle."

Adelaide nodded. "The oldest question in the Universe."

"Warning," Handles said. "Translation will be available to all lifeforms in range. Translation follows. Doctor who? Doctor who?" the voice began to change, likely shifting to actually projecting the original message. "Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor who?"

"A question only I could answer," the Doctor mumbled. Technically, given the laws of the Time Lords, you could share your name with whomever you wanted, but it was their greatest secret. Most Time Lords just went by a nickname before they chose their title. But the Doctor and Adelaide had yet to share their names with each other, let alone anyone else. Or even, really, their nicknames. They really only knew the other's title. "A truth field to make sure I'm not lying. If I give my name, they'll know they've found the right place and that it's safe to come through."

"The Time Lords?" Clara nodded. "Okay, so what then? If you answer the question and they come back, what happens?"

The Time Lords looked at each other before the Doctor pulled something from his pocket, handing it out to Clara. "You need to take this to the TARDIS and put it in the charger slot for the sonic."

"Why?"

"Hell," Adelaide said simply. "There's half a universe up there waiting to open fire."

"Now please, go to the TARDIS and just do as we say."

Clara turned and ran back to the TARDIS. Through the door, the Time Lords saw Tasha's face appear in the sky.

"Doctor!" Tasha called. "Adelaide! Speak with me! Face me now!"

The Time Lords climbed to the top of the tower, which was open to the air with a single bell in the center. "Mother Superious," the Doctor greeted, "there is only one thing we need from you. This planet, what's it called?"

"Trenzalore." Tasha paused. "If you speak your name, the Time Lords will return."

"If they return, they will come in peace," the Doctor said.

"They will be met with a war that will never end," Adelaide said.

Tasha nodded in agreement. "The Time War will begin anew. You know that, Doctor."

They watched Clara enter the TARDIS, and the Doctor pointed his sonic down at it, making it dematerialize. "They're asking for my help," the Doctor had to argue his case to both women.

"And if you give it, war will be the consequence. I will not let that happen, at any cost. Speak your name and this world will burn."

"No, this planet is protected!" he soniced the projection, making it vanish, and then at the bell to make it ring. And then he turned to Adelaide.

"Before anything else happens, Doctor," Adelaide said, speaking quietly, "I need you to know that Gallifrey is not my home. You have missed it, I have not. The universe is my home, and I will protect the universe. And if to do that I must protect Gallifrey, I shall."

She knew she didn't die here which meant, somehow, she got off the planet and the Doctor didn't. She had the distinct feeling it was because they would have to fight a war to protect the universe, and she had no taste for war.

She would always run from war.

He nodded. "Thank you." They walked down the stairs together to greet the people, though Adelaide did not take his hand. "So, you lot, a quick word, thank you," he addressed the crowd. "Spot of news. Christmas has a new sheriff." He straightened his bowtie. "Hello, everyone. I'm the Doctor."

"And I'm Adelaide."

|C-S|

"In the time that followed, the Papal Mainframe strove to maintain the peace between the Doctor, Adelaide, and their enemies. As the days passed, and the years, the two stayed true to their words. On the fields of Trenzalore, they stood as protectors of both their own people and their new home."

|C-S|

The Time Lords were sitting, in one of the few lull periods of their time in Christmas on Trenzalore, on opposite sides of the room. The crack stretched between them. The Doctor looked up at Adelaide, watching her reading a letter of thanks a few of the children had written them after the most recent attack. "Why is Gallifrey not your home?"

Adelaide lowered the letter, but she didn't look up at him. They were sitting in the truth field, so it would be impossible for her to lie. "Gallifrey was not kind to me as a child. I could never seem to truly understand the people around me. I kept pushing away the few friends I would make; my desire to understand the rest of the Universe was isolating, especially when I was young. Of course, I didn't really mind, I liked being on my own, even then. But I understood that no one really liked me; so, in turn, I didn't like anyone."

"But our people..."

"Were the ones I abandoned." Adelaide looked up. "I was my happiest when I was away from Gallifrey, but it kept pulling me back, forcing me back. It just made me hate it more."

"You helped to save Gallifrey."

"I helped to right the mistake I'd made by letting the war reach the point it did," she corrected. "I did not do it out of some deeply hidden desire to return to our planet." She nodded to the crack. "And you know I'm not lying." The Doctor said nothing for a second. "What was your nickname? What did people in the Academy call you?"

"Theta Sigma."

Adelaide smiled. "I was Mer."

He forced a smile. "No wonder the TARDIS called you Mermaid."

"It's what I got for professing my love for the sea."

"Why'd you love it so much?"

"I believed it was the end of the world and if I sailed far enough across I'd be able to escape Gallifrey."

That stilled the Doctor's expression.

 **A/N: The stand at Christmas has begun. Also thought it was finally time that the Time Lords share their school nicknames ;)**

 **Notes on reviews:**

 _Littleperson930: Always did like this episode too :)_

 _primus light bringer: I would never like to spoil an episode of Doctor Who for anyone. Always far more enjoyable to watch it yourself first ;)_

 _gossamermouse101: These two are in an interesting place, aren't they? ;)_


	34. The Clock Strikes

**The Clock Strikes**

"Over the years, their foes would find new and, stranger ways to enter the town called Christmas."

|C-S|

A young boy, playing Blind Man's Bluff, spun in a circle as he searched for the other children. He wandered for a bit but, finding no one, frowned. "Are you there? Hello? Am I getting warm?" He paused at hearing a strange sound, removing his blindfold to find he was staring at a Cyberman made of wood, which he'd heard stories of from the two in the tower. He turned and ran through the town. "There's another one!" he ducked as the Cyberman shot flame at him. "There's another one! There's another one!" he rang the alarm bells as he passed them. "There's another one! Doctor! Adelaide! There's another one!"

"Incinerate!" the Cyberman called. "Incinerate! The Doctor is required!"

The Doctor stepped out of the tower, tossing a wooden rifle to the child. He looked noticeably older than he had upon arriving on Christmas. "There you go, Barnable."

The boy grinned. "Thanks."

"Working fine. Nice action." He pointed at him. "Don't leave it out in the rain again." He tossed another toy to a nearby girl. "Fixed the wheels and the antigrav."

"The anti what?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Yeah, may have gone a bit far. Adelaide says I'm always doing that." He turned to face the Cyberman. He'd ended up being the one who faced the threats more often, though Adelaide did sometimes set traps or lead the enemies to him. But, as more threats had appeared, Adelaide had started just studying them in the tower in her curiosity at how the various races had managed to adapt to the limited technology. She'd be interested in this one. "Now then, what do we have today? Don't you move one step further. Wooden Cyberman. Nice. Adelaide?" he called behind him, the Time Lady emerging to lean in the doorway.

While he'd aged, she looked exactly the same. "Low tech as to not set off the alarms?"

The Doctor nodded, limping forward with his cane to face the Cyberman and pulling his sonic out, flashing it before it could lift its arm. "Only bit of tech allowed it. Got in before the truce, which is the only reason Adelaide's allowed us to keep it. Now, I just sent an instruction to your firearm to reverse the polarity and fire out the back end. Now, as we're standing in a truth field, you will understand I cannot be lying. If you like, you can scan my screwdriver, verify that's the signal I sent."

"Signal verified," the Cyberman said, shooting itself in the chest.

"Yes, I probably should have mentioned this" he wiggled the sonic "doesn't work on wood." He strode closer to the Cyberman. "You send your friends up there a message from the Doctor. You tell them the Doctor and Adelaide stay." He shoved the Cyberman over with his cane, blowing on the end of his sonic. "Next."

Adelaide, still standing in the doorway, shook her head at him.

|C-S|

Christmas, as they always seemed to, threw a party to celebrate the defeat of the Cyberman. They did that every time the Doctor or Adelaide (mostly the Doctor) defeated something.

"And there's me arm-wrestling a Draconian," the Doctor laughed as the children jumped up and down around him, all trying to give him their drawing. "I remember that!" He picked one, waving it towards where Adelaide was, having a conversation with a few of the older children. They'd started doing that, him entertaining the young ones and Adelaide answering the older one's questions. "Look!"

|C-S|

"In time, the Doctor seemed to forget he'd lived any other life. But Adelaide never forgot. And the people of the town came to love the man and woman who stayed for Christmas."

|C-S|

"You've got to be the drunk giraffe!" the Doctor told the children that surrounded them, attempting to teach them what he'd declared his favorite dance move in all of time and space. "You've got to commit! Don't be cool, guys. Cool is not cool!"

"Cool is not cool!" the children repeated.

"And what's the dance we're doing?"

"The drunk giraffe!" they cheered.

"The drunk giraffe! Yeah, it is! Merry Christmas. Give me a hug, bring it in." The children rushed forward, nearly tackling him to the ground.

Once the Doctor extracted himself from their embrace, he wandered over to where Adelaide was sitting, reading a book that she'd found somewhere in the village. "Having fun?"

"The TARDIS has been some time," she said, not looking up. She was sitting almost exactly where the TARDIS would appear. He'd noticed, especially over the last century, that Adelaide seemed to get a bit itchy from not being able to travel. He'd never seen that before; normally, she was the better one at staying somewhere.

Barnable ran up to them, hurrying through the crowd. "Hello, Adelaide, Doctor!"

The Time Lord grinned at him. "How's your father's barn?"

"You've fixed the leak alright, but he says it's bigger on the inside now."

The Doctor shrugged. "Shush, they'll all want one."

Adelaide stiffened, making the Doctor spin, as the TARDIS started to attempt to land. Barnable frowned, not understanding. "What is that? What's that noise?"

Adelaide stood, though it was the Doctor who spoke. "Well, where have you been for three hundred years?"

"What's that?"

"It's our ship."

Barnable shook his head. "Your what?"

"It's our TARDIS. That's how we got here in the first place."

The boy frowned. "Does that mean you're leaving?"

When the TARDIS had fully materialized, both Time Lords were shocked to see Clara clinging to the outside, holding her key in the lock. The Doctor hurried forward, tapping Clara's back to make her turn. "What are you doing here?"

Clara blinked, seeming a bit out of it for a few seconds. "I was in space."

"You were in the time vortex," Adelaide corrected, coming forward. "The TARDIS must have extended the force field."

The Doctor shook his head. "No wonder she's late, dragging you around."

Clara seemed to settle, narrowing her eyes at them. "You tricked me!"

"We saved you."

"You didn't even say goodbye!"

"We're furious with you!" he pointed his cane at her.

"Well," Clara crossed her arms, "I am not even talking to either of you!"

After a second, the Doctor and Clara laughed, hugging each other tightly before Adelaide was dragged in too.

|C-S|

The tower was not nearly as messy as it could have been since Adelaide reorganized it every few years. For a whole year, she hadn't let the Doctor inside in case he messed something up.

Clara wandered throughout the room, examining the various drawings and letters they'd received from the children over the centuries. She couldn't help but notice a few of them, written with much neater penmanship, appeared to be homework assignments of a sort.

It seemed that Adelaide had started doing what she'd done on Gallifrey, biding her time by becoming a teacher.

"Fixing toys, fighting monsters, teaching children, cleaning up the mess," Clara said, turning to where Adelaide was standing. "You've been having some exciting centuries."

The Doctor walked into the room, having gone to check that everything was okay about the TARDIS. "The turkey isn't done yet."

Clara glanced at the crack, which hadn't changed at all. "Is it still asking the question?"

"Oh, never stops." He sighed before moving towards the stairs, Adelaide coming to help him climb. "Come upstairs. It's almost time."

"What for?" Clara asked, following.

"Dawn," Adelaide called. "Light here only lasts for a few minutes. We never miss it."

|C-S|

The Time Lords sat beside Clara at the top of the tower, a small fire burning before them. "Well, it's a standoff," the Doctor explained to Clara, sitting between her and Adelaide. "They can't attack in case I unleash the Time Lords, and I can't run away because they'll burn this planet to stop the Time Lords. Hey," he chuckled to himself, "after all these years, I've finally found somewhere that needs me to stick around." Adelaide shook her head at that. "A town called Christmas. Could've been worse. Right," he adjusted Handles in his lap, having made a nest of blankets for the head, "there you go, buddy. Comfy?"

"Comfort is irrelevant," Handles told him.

"How's that, is that better?" the Doctor adjusted him.

"Affirmative."

The Doctor patted Handles' head. "You just take it easy, buddy." He leaned closer to Clara, speaking a bit quieter. "He's getting old. We do our best for him, but we just can't get the parts, you know." He chuckled. "Hey, I know the feeling."

Clara adjusted the marshmallow she was toasting in the fire. "Where did you get these?"

"I have a supplier," the marshmallows were the Doctor's. He'd tried to make Adelaide a strawberry garden in the beginning, but he'd quickly discovered that this planet was not suited for strawberry growth. It hadn't stopped him trying, even if he'd yet to grow anything. "The pink ones are the best." The Doctor ate one straight.

"I have developed a fault," Handles said.

"Hey, don't you worry, Handles, you're just dreaming. The sun's coming up very soon. You just hang on in there."

"I have developed a fault." The head's voice started to shift to static, having been fading for a while now. "I...I...I have developed a fault."

"Hey, Handles," the Doctor picked up Handles. "Come on, come on. One more dawn, you can do it. You've got it in you. Come on, just hang on in there."

"Attention! Emergency! Att..."

"Handles, what is it?" Adelaide asked, having a guess.

"Urgent action required. You must patch the telephone device back through the console unit..." Handles powered down, finally done.

Adelaide took the Doctor's hand as he patted the head again. "Thank you, Handles, and well done. Well done, mate." The birds started to sing, signaling the arrival of dawn. The trio stood and made their way to the edge in order to greet it better. "What do you think of our new place? We come up here once a day for a few minutes, to remind us of what it is we're protecting."

Clara smiled down at the town illuminated by the dawn light. "It's beautiful." She turned to the Time Lords. "Why did you send me away?"

"We would have buried you a long time ago," Adelaide told her.

Clara shook her head. "No, you wouldn't. I would never have let you get stuck here."

"Ha!" the Doctor laughed. "Everyone gets stuck somewhere eventually, Clara. Everything ends."

"Except you."

The man shook his head. "Have you been paying attention? I'm an old man now." He gestured to his face.

"But you don't die. You change. You pop right back up with a new face."

"Not forever," Adelaide said. "We have thirteen different faces, twelve changes."

Clara nodded. "Okay, so you're number eleven, so..."

"The Time War," she reminded the human.

The Doctor nodded. "I didn't call myself the Doctor during the Time War, but it was still a regeneration."

"Okay, so you're number twelve."

"Number ten regenerated once and kept the same face," Adelaide said. "I was there."

The Doctor shrugged. "I had vanity issues at the time." He sighed. "Twelve regenerations, Clara. I can't ever do it again." He looked out at the planet below. "This is where I end up. This face, this version of me. We saw this planet in the future, remember? All those graves, one of them mine."

"Change the future."

"We can't."

"You've got your TARDIS back."

"Ha!" he laughed. "You think we're just going to fly away, abandon everyone?"

"Of course not," Clara answered quickly and Adelaide wondered if the truth field let you tell a lie if you believed in it hard enough. "But you've been protecting this town for over three hundred years. Do you not think it's anybody else's go yet?"

Adelaide shook her head. "There is no one else to protect it." She supposed she was earning the title of the Doctor's protector now. The protector of many, she'd heard herself called before. Maybe this was really why.

"It's not going to be you forever. It'll end the same way, whatever you do."

The Doctor clenched one of his fists. "Every life I save is a victory. Every single one." Adelaide said nothing.

"What about your life? Just for once, after all this time, have you not earned the right to think about that?" The Doctor looked at her. "Sorry. Wrong thing to say. We shouldn't be having an argument."

"Clara," Adelaide said, "we've been having that argument for the last three hundred years."

"But you didn't have your TARDIS."

He shrugged. "Ah, yes, well, that made it easier to stay, true."

There was a rumbling noise and Tasha's face appeared in the sky. "Doctor! Adelaide!"

"Look who's woken up!" the Doctor called up.

"The Church of the Silence requests parlay. Your rights and safety are sanctified."

The Doctor nodded. "We'll be right up."

"I'm sending a transporter."

"Nah," he waved a hand, "don't bother. We've got our motor back." The projection disappeared.

Clara shivered, eyeing the fact the planet had already gotten dark again. "It's gone dark."

"Yeah, well, the sun's gone down."

"Already?"

"Everything ends," the Doctor said. "And sooner than you think."

|C-S|

The trio approached Tasha, fully clothed that time since Tasha had stopped enforcing that regulation on the Time Lords long ago.

"She hasn't aged much," Clara whispered.

"She's against aging," Adelaide said, shaking her head, not that she could say much as she hadn't aged herself.

"Approach!" Tasha called.

"Confess..." a Silence hissed from the side.

Clara shivered. "what are those things?"

"Confessional priests," the Doctor explained. "Very popular. Genetically engineered so you forget everything you told them."

Clara blinked, looking away from the Silence. "Told who?"

"There you go."

|C-S|

The Time Lords had been a bit uneasy about the fact that Tasha had neglected the majority of the normally required ceremony and just brought them to her chambers. They'd all sat around the table she now had in there, with Tasha putting a box down in front of the Doctor. "Satisfactory?"

He frowned at its contents. "Where are the pink ones?"

"You're hyper enough as it is," Adelaide told the Doctor, making him pout at her.

Clara raised her eyebrows at the scene before her. "So, this is sweet. Middle of a siege and you three have little chats?"

Tasha sighed. "She's right. This situation cannot continue."

"It can't end either," the Doctor closed the box, sitting back.

"Why did you ever come to Trenzalore?"

"Well, we did come to Trenzalore," the Doctor snapped, "and nothing can change that now. Didn't stop you trying though, did it?"

"Not me," Tasha shook her head. "The Kovarian Chapter broke away. They traveled back along your timeline and tried to prevent you" she looked specifically at the Doctor "ever reaching Trenzalore."

"So that's who blew up the TARDIS. I thought I'd left the bath running," the Doctor mumbled the last part.

"They blew up your time capsule, created the very cracks in the universe through which the Time Lords are now calling."

Adelaide shook her head. "A destiny trap. Once they became part of history they couldn't change it."

"They engineered a psychopath to kill one of you."

"Yes, that didn't go to plan," Adelaide sighed.

Tasha nodded. "I'm not interested in changing history. I want to change the future. The Daleks send for reinforcements daily. They are massing for war. Three days ago, they attacked the Mainframe itself."

The Time Lords stiffened. "They attacked here?"

Clara frowned. "How did you stop them?"

"Stop them?" Tasha laughed. "It was slaughter."

"Why didn't you call us? We could have helped."

"I tried. I died in this room, screaming your names."

They went quiet for a few seconds. "No..."

"Oh." Tasha blinked. "I died. It's funny the things that slip your mind." The Time Lords, gesturing for Clara to follow them, stood. "Ah!"

"No! No, no, no, Tasha, no, please, not Tasha! No! Fight it!" the Doctor tried. "Tash, fight it!"

A Dalek eyestalk burst through Tasha's head as other Daleks entered the room. "Step away from the Dalek unit, Doctor," they ordered, as the Time Lord was the one who had leaped forward.

"You shouldn't even know who I am."

"Information concerning the Doctor and the protector were harvested from the cadaver of Tasha Lem."

He smirked. "Bet she never told you how to break through the Trenzalore force field, though. She'd have died first."

"Several times."

"Well, you'd better kill me, then, go on. But before you do," he soniced the comms, projecting the question through the room. "I'm a tough old bird. I'll be ages dying. Way enough time to answer a question. And, oh dear, what happens then, boys?"

Tasha grabbed Adelaide before she could do anything. "You will die in silence, Doctor, or your protector will die."

"Wouldn't be much of a protector then," Adelaide said, twisting just enough that she could elbow Tasha in the face.

The shock of it made Tasha stumble back, seeming to jerk as she took control again, and destroy the Daleks with the weapon that had come out of her hand.

"And she's back!" the Doctor cheered, running to Adelaide and taking her hand. Tasha settled herself again, rolling her shoulders. "Right, get us back to the TARDIS," he told Tasha. "Can you do that?" They stepped back towards the teleport booths.

Tasha turned to face them. "Yeah, but quickly, the Dalek inside me is waking."

"Fight it," the Doctor said, as though it was something simple to do."

"I can't."

"Listen to me." The Doctor smirked. "You have been fighting the psychopath inside you all your life. Shut up and win. That is an order, Tasha Lem." They stepped into the booths as Tasha nodded.

"The force field will hold for a while, but it will decay, and there are breaches already."

The Doctor nodded. "Then this isn't a siege anymore, it's a war." He looked to Tasha. "It's all up to you now. Fight the Daleks, inside and out. You can do it, I know you can."

"Oh, I see," Tasha sighed. "You've got your TARDIS back, haven't you? Time to fly away."

"Tasha," Adelaide said, making the woman look at her, "thank you for trying to maintain peace."

Tasha nodded at them. "Fly away!" she pulled the lever, teleporting them away.

|C-S|

The Time Lords worked on piloting the TARDIS together, Clara sitting off to the side. They had yet to speak, the pair seeming to have reached the point together where they could communicate without words...though they did occasionally still both reach for the same levers and buttons as they tried to do parts of both jobs.

It seemed that connection existed more for plans than piloting.

Adelaide was the one who looked over at her when something dinged. "Your turkey is done."

"Either that or it's woken up," the Doctor shrugged.

Clara jumped from her seat. "Do you want some?"

"Go on, then."

"Got any plates?" she moved to go beneath the console.

"Do you know, I've even got Christmas crackers."

Clara paused before she descended, turning back to them. "One thing, both of you. Look at me so I know you're not lying, even you, Adelaide, and tell me you will never send me away ever again."

"Clara Oswald," the Doctor said, "we will never send you away again."

Clara eyed them for a second longer before grinning, hurrying to go under the console. "Turkey smells good!"

"Yeah, smells great." The Doctor glanced at Barnable on the monitor, as they'd left the boy waiting for them to return. The Time Lords moved to the door without speaking, knowing that the moment they were outside the TARDIS would bring Clara back to her flats and then return, hopefully without her hanging on that time.

The whole thing happened, for them, in a second. Barnable stood, walking over to stand next to them. "If you're not leaving, why did you bring it back?"

"It's a reminder." The Doctor nodded. "Besides, we might leave tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that."

And if Adelaide wanted, she could leave whenever. Because this would be a war, and Adelaide didn't like war. She'd never seen a war and she didn't want to fight one. She was a scientist, not a soldier.

She had been tempted to leave, honestly, now that they had the TARDIS again. Just leave the Doctor to defend Christmas and the crack and the Time Lords. But she didn't know how the Doctor would react if she, one of the last constants in his life at the moment, left. If he'd just abandon all hope.

The Doctor could fight the war, could stand on the battlefield and declare no more.

Adelaide would be in the tower ensuring the universe was protected.

Earning the title the universe had given her.

|C-S|

"And so, to the fields of Trenzalore came all the Time Lords' enemies and some that Adelaide had once thought of as friends. For this was the winter of the Doctor. In time, when all other races had retreated or burned, only the Church of the Mainframe remained in the path of the Daleks. And so those ancient enemies, the Time Lords and the Silence, stood back to back on the fields of Trenzalore."

|C-S|

Clara ran into the TARDIS, which had appeared outside of her block of flats, not at all surprised to see Adelaide, still unaged, standing at the console. "What's happened to him?" Clara asked, seeing Adelaide's expression, the Time Lady not quite able to hide it like she normally did.

"He's been asking for you," Adelaide said, straightening. "It's almost time."

Clara walked up to her, standing as close as she was fairly certain she could. "Are you alright?"

"We always knew the Doctor died at Trenzalore." Adelaide touched a bit of the console. "I just always thought I'd have found my own TARDIS first."

|C-S|

Adelaide brought Clara to where the Doctor was sitting. Christmas had clearly been almost completely destroyed, having been suffering under a war for centuries. The tower was one of the last things standing – she'd once heard some people saying it happened due to Adelaide's sheer force of will – and the Doctor sat inside, using the light of the crack to work on the children's toys.

"Doctor," Adelaide said quietly. He was so old now, relying on her for almost everything. It was strange, to know he was about to die, to know that she was about to become the last real Time Lady in the universe.

Unless, of course, the General shifted to asking for her name, and then they'd need to convince her to save them...which would be a very difficult thing to do. She almost hoped they would try.

The man looked up, turning around. "Adelaide." He smiled at her.

"Clara's here," Adelaide guided the human forward, letting Clara kneel before the Doctor and take his hand.

The Doctor shook his head, studying Clara's face. "Were you always so young?"

Clara tried to smile. "Nah, that was you."

"Ah." He kissed her hand.

Adelaide knelt beside the Doctor, the man almost immediately taking her hand. "Clara brought a cracker for you."

"I love crackers."

Clara nodded, holding the cracker she'd been holding to the Doctor. "Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas." The Doctor took it, but he was clearly struggling to pull it. Adelaide just took his hand and helped him pull the cracker. "Is there a joke?"

Clara pulled the small card from the cracker. "Extract from Thoughts on a Clock by Eric Ritchie Junior." She sat back against the chair.

"Is it a knock-knock one? Those are the best."

She shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Read it, Clara, please," Adelaide said.

"'And now it's time for one last bow, like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock's striking twelve's.'"

The Doctor frowned. "I don't get it."

"Doctor!" A Dalek called from outside. "The Doctor will be brought! The Daleks demand the Doctor!"

A young man ran into the room. "They're here! The Daleks, we can't stop them. They want you."

The Doctor nodded. "Oh, alright, Barnable. Are you Barnable?"

Adelaide squeezed the Doctor's hand. "No, Doctor." For the past few years, one of the only people the Doctor could recognize was Adelaide.

"It's okay, Barnable, don't worry. I have got a plan. Off you pop." He smiled at the boy until he left, and then his face fell again. "I haven't got a plan, but people love it when I say that."

"What are you going to do?" Clara asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, I don't know. Talk very fast, hope something good happens, take the credit. That's generally how it works."

"Doctor..."

"Not this time, though. This is it."

"No!"

Adelaide nodded. "We all saw the future, Clara. This is how it ends."

"Change it. Like Tasha said, change the future!"

The Doctor looked towards the crack. "I could have once, when there were Time Lords. Not anymore."

"The Time War would start again," Adelaide said. "Worse than before."

"Locate the Doctor!" the Daleks called again.

Adelaide helped the Doctor stand, but Clara moved to join them. "No," the Doctor said. "You're going to stay here. Promise me you will."

"Why?"

"I'll be keeping you safe. One last victory. Allow me that. Give me that." He touched Clara's cheek. "Our impossible girl. Thank you. And goodbye." And then he turned to Adelaide. "Protect, Adelaide. Please."

She smiled at that, which seemed to make him happy. "I will, Doctor." She hugged him, tightly, but she didn't cry.

The Doctor stepped back and, with a final nod, started shuffling towards the stairs. He'd been insisting on climbing them on his own for the dawns recently, likely having planned to not take Adelaide with him now. "The trouble with Daleks is, they take so long to say anything. Probably die of boredom before they shoot me." He vanished up the stairs.

"The Doctor is required!" the Daleks called again.

Adelaide took a breath, closing her eyes. They'd known the Doctor would die here, they'd known it was inevitable. And they'd known she didn't.

She'd just never thought it would be like this.

"Listen to me, you lot," Clara said sharply, making Adelaide turn. The woman was speaking to the crack, to the Time Lords within. "Listen! Help him. Help him change the future. Do it. Do something!" She knelt. "You've been asking a question, and it's time someone told you you've been getting it wrong. His name...his name is the Doctor. All the name he needs. Everything you need to know about him. And if you love him, and you should, help him. Help him."

The crack snapped shut and Clara stood, turning to the Time Lady, who said nothing. They walked out of the tower together, turning to look up at where the Doctor was standing at the top of the tower to address the Daleks.

"Sorry I'm a bit slow," the Doctor said, leaning on his cane. "I may not be at my best right now."

A Dalek hovered before him. "You are dying, Doctor."

"Yes, I'm dying. You've been trying to kill me for centuries, and here I am, dying of old age." He shrugged. "If you want something done, do it yourself."

"You will die and the Time Lords will never return."

"You still can't work up the courage to shoot me, can you? You're still worried I've got something up my sleeve. Well, you knock yourselves out, boys. I've got nothing this time!"

The Daleks started to fire at the troops of the village, thankfully sparing the majority of the people as Adelaide had refused to let the Daleks set foot in the town.

Adelaide was about to rush into the TARDIS when she saw something appear in the sky, something that honestly made her mouth drop open. The crack, glowing more golden now, had appeared...and there was something that was clearly regeneration energy flowing from it to the Doctor.

The Time Lords were giving the Doctor regeneration energy.

"You will die now, Doctor!" the Daleks cried. "This is the end of you. The rules of regeneration are known. You have expended all your lives!"

"Sorry, what did you say?" Adelaide nearly laughed out loud at the way the Doctor was grinning, reinvigorated. "Did you mention the rules? Now, listen. Bit of advice. Tell me the truth if you think you know it. Lay down the law if you're feeling brave. But, Daleks, never, never tell me the rules!" His hands started to glow with the regeneration energy.

"Emergency! Emergency! The Doctor is regenerating!" The clock started to strike twelve. "The Doctor is regenerating!"

He looked down at his hands, doing a little spin. "Oh, look at this. Regeneration number thirteen! We're breaking some serious science here, boys. Look, Adelaide! I'm the scientist now!" he waved at her, jumping up and down. "I tell you what, it's going to be a whopper!"

"Exterminate! Exterminate the Doctor!"

"You think you can stop me now, Daleks? If you want my life...come...and...get it!" He wound his arms up, firing a burst of regeneration energy from his hands. Each one destroyed more Daleks.

Adelaide stayed motionless, watching the Doctor, but Clara had started to run around, directing people into the tower. "Get inside! Come on, quickly. Get inside, quick!" Bits of burning Daleks fell from the sky.

"Love from Gallifrey, boys!" the Doctor called, sending a final blast from his head up to the mothership.

Adelaide, finally, ran into the TARDIS.

|C-S|

Adelaide had just finished folding the Doctor's old clothes when Clara entered. The man had ripped all of them off upon entering the TARDIS, shouting that he had a right to make a mess in his own TARDIS when Adelaide critiqued him. Once he'd finished, she'd just sighed and started cleaning up the mess he'd made.

"Where is he?" Clara asked, grimacing at the bowl of almost finished fish fingers and custard that the Doctor had refused to let Adelaide clean.

"Hello!" the Doctor called, running up to their level of the console. He looked as he'd done when they'd arrived on Trenzalore, but it was only the process of regeneration into his next body.

Clara smiled at him, thankful. "You're young again. You're okay. You didn't even change your face."

He shook his head, wiggling his fingers as they glowed a bit more golden. "It's started; I can't stop it now."

"This is just the reset," Adelaide called.

The Doctor nodded. "A whole new regeneration cycle." He ate one of the fish fingers, savoring it. "Taking a bit longer. Just breaking it in." But then he hunched over, shaking. Adelaide started to pilot the TARDIS for him, knowing without him needing to say that he couldn't, not now. "It all just disappears, doesn't it?" he said quietly. "Everything you are, gone in a moment, like breath on a mirror. Any moment now, he's a-coming."

"Who's coming?" Clara frowned.

"The Doctor."

Clara shook her head. "But you...you are the Doctor."

The Doctor forced a smile, but he still hunched over, another wave of pain hitting him. "Yep, and I always will be. But times change, and so must I." He sighed. "Amelia..."

Clara looked at Adelaide. "Who's Amelia?"

"This face's first companion," Adelaide said.

"But not the first face this face saw." The Doctor took Adelaide's hand.

Adelaide nodded. "We all change," she said quietly. "We're all different people throughout our lives. And that's okay." She told him it as much as she told herself, the words heavy.

The Doctor squeezed her hand. "You've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people you used to be. I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me." He looked at Clara, smiling at her, before fixing his attention back on Adelaide. Slowly, he pulled off his bowtie.

Adelaide was, honestly, far less worried this time than the first time she'd seen the Doctor regenerate. She supposed it had something to do with the fact she'd spent centuries coming to terms with his actual death, only to learn that he'd keep living, that she wasn't going to be alone now. The first time everything had happened so quickly...and she'd still been dealing with the lingering effects of having just been a human for multiple years, everything about the Doctor hadn't fully sunken in.

Some of that fear had been hard to shake immediately, no matter how hard she'd tried.

But now she'd had so long to get used to his death, to accept the state the universe would be left in without him. She still hadn't had time to think of who she'd be in the universe without him. Now she didn't have to.

She was happy, but some part of her, worming its way throughout her, hated it.

"No," Clara said, shaking her head, "no. Please don't change."

It happened quickly, quicker than Adelaide had ever seen it before. The Doctor just jerked back for a second and when he straightened again, he had a new face.

A face that looked to be the age Adelaide was. A face that pulled on some distant, faded memory.

He stared at her very intently, as though attempting to memorize her features, before he spoke. "Kidneys!" he said, touching his abdomen with his free hand. "I've got new kidneys." He made a face. "I don't like the color."

"Of your kidneys?" Adelaide said, frowning. It reminded her of the fact that the first thing he'd noticed last regeneration had been his legs.

The TARDIS shook, sending them flying, but both Time Lords managed to grab hold of the console before they went too far. "What's happening?" Clara called, scrambling to keep her own balance.

"We're probably crashing!" the Doctor laughed. "Oh!"

"Into what?"

"Stay calm." The Doctor found Adelaide's eyes again, leaning on the console to see her better. "Just one question. Do you happen to know how to fly this thing?"

 **A/N: The Doctor has regenerated! These two have quite an adventure ahead of them with his twelfth regeneration...**

 **Thank you to everyone who has continued to read this story! I hope you enjoyed it!**

 _ **The Crossed Stars**_ **will continue in the story _Wherever You Go_ , which is already posted. I hope you come over and check out the next part of these Time Lords' journey!**

 _Notes on reviews:_

 _Littleperson930: Sorry that I'm not sorry ;)_

 _gossamermouse101: I definitely remember getting emotional the first time I watched this episode :)_


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